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MOSCOW President Vladimir Putin ordered the security services Wednesday to seek and destroy the killers of four Russian hostages in Iraq.
The tough remarks indicate the Kremlin is no longer shy about carrying out extrajudicial executions of suspected terrorists and radicals abroad. They also suggest Russias security services are reclaiming the KGBs global reach in covert operations.
The president ordered the special forces to take all necessary measures to find and destroy the criminals who killed Russian diplomats in Iraq, the Kremlin press service said.
Putin, speaking during a Kremlin meeting with Saudi Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, also said Russia would be grateful to all its friends for any information on the criminals who killed our citizens in Iraq, the Kremlin press service said. |
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CITY OF ANGELS
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Members of St. Petersburg’s new Angels Service assembled on Palace Square on Wednesday, shortly before going on duty. The new service is aimed at aiding visitors to the city, who can approach the Angels for directions and advice while walking around the city. |
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MOSCOW There used to be a popular Soviet-era joke about how to make the ruble a global currency. Easy, the joker would say, just place your rubles inside a konvert, or envelope, and the currency becomes convertible.
Yet the puns will finally be mothballed Saturday, when the ruble becomes a convertible currency, fully integrated into the global economy.
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Workers installing an advertising hoarding on the southern outskirts of the city have discovered a Kalashnikov gun with several magazines full of bullets and a homemade grenade launcher.
The weapons were found in the attic of an apartment building on Moskovsky Prospect overlooking the highway that will be used by leaders of the G8 member states during the forthcoming summit in the city on July 15-17. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW Opposition leaders will hold an alternative summit in Moscow less than a week before the G8 meeting to protest what they call a clampdown on democratic and economic freedoms under President Vladimir Putin.
Organizers, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and former presidential economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, said Wednesday that the Different Russia summit would be held July 11-12 and bring together opposition leaders as diverse as former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and National Bolshevik Party head Eduard Limonov. |
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With nearly 200 stamps on it, a giant 15-meter-long postcard designed by non-conformist artistic group Mitki looks set to become part of the Guinness Book of Records. |
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MOSCOW The Prosecutor Generals Office is seeking to shut three popular youth magazines that, it says, exploit teenagers thirst for sex and drugs.
Cool, Cool Girl and Molotok have violated laws pertaining to the media, narcotics and children, a statement posted on the Prosecutor Generals Office web site said. |
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MOSCOW Secretive presidential aide Vladislav Surkov emerged from the shadows Wednesday to defend Russias political path, quoting foreign journalists articles back to them during a lengthy news conference marked by historical and literary references. |
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MOSCOW Russias uranium exploration and mining assets at home and in the CIS will be combined into a single, purely state-owned enterprise, nuclear energy chief Sergei Kiriyenko said Wednesday, scotching hopes that private investors would be allowed to retain minority stakes in uranium enterprises. |
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The Calling Party Pays (CCP) principle, which comes into effect for all Russias mobile operators from Saturday, will allow most subscribers to receive incoming calls free of charge. |
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MOSCOW Electricity monopoly Unified Energy System picked U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch and Alfa Bank as consultants to float its spun-off generating companies, the company said Monday.
UES said in a statement that the banks, chosen after a tender, would come up with a strategy to attract investments to the generation companies and advise on additional share issues which will be a mix of IPOs and private placements. |
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In the decade that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe was concerned but not worried about the decline of Russia. The European Union did not at the time regard its great neighbor as a political or economic problem; Russia was retreating from empire, and as it grew weaker it appeared less threatening. |
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At a recent meeting of the G8 security and justice officials, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said it was time to stop terrorist access to the Internet. |
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 Soviet culture fell into two categories, says Vladimir Paperny in Kultura Dva.
The leading publishing house on the Russian academic literature market, NLO (Novoye Literaturnoye Obosreniye, New Literature Review), has just reissued Vladimir Papernys Kultura Dva or K2 (Culture Two), perhaps the most prominent of the Soviet intellectual bestsellers of the late 1970s. |
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Hip-hop, the cultural phenomenon that was begun by inner-city youngsters in New York in the early 1970s, has gone mainstream in Russia.
Thanks to MTV, Russians are getting used to graffiti, and youths sporting baggy jeans and doo rags tied around their heads, and the sound of hip-hop music. |
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Stereoleto, a series of outdoor concerts continues this week with Ladytron, a Liverpool-based electropop quartet. Having taken its name from a Roxy Music song, the band has been around since 1998. After releasing a new album called Witching Hour (2005), the foursome now performs with eight synthesizers and one guitar on stage. |
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The work of Jean-Paul Riopelle, a painter and sculptor from Montreal and one of Canadas most famous artists of the 20th century, is on display for the first time in Russia at the State Hermitage Museum. |
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The Open Look Festival of contemporary dance.
The Open Look Festival, which from Saturday provides the city with an eight-day-long contemporary dance fiesta, opens with an outdoor party featuring Swedish-Russian joint project Street EYES, and two U.S. |
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The Muslim experience in tsarist Russia is often described as a cycle of repression, Russification and conflict. A new book by scholar Robert D. Crews tells a different story. |
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KUWAIT Kuwaitis voted for a new parliament on Thursday with women running and casting ballots for the first time in a national poll in the Gulf Arab state.
I dont know how to describe my feelings, I am so happy, its a beautiful day as women practice their right, female candidate Hind al-Shaikh said. |
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LOS ANGELES A six-month pregnant Britney Spears has posed nude for the cover of the August issue of Harpers Bazaar magazine and an accompanying photo spread inside, much in the style of the famous 1991 Vanity Fair cover of a naked and heavily pregnant Demi Moore. |
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ETA Talks Begin
MADRID, Spain (AP) Spain officially announced the start of peace negotiations with the Basque separatist group ETA after formally informing parliament Thursday, and the prime minister warned that talks to end decades of bloodshed would be long and difficult.
The talks had been widely expected since ETA declared a permanent cease-fire in March. |
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ROME Italys biggest-ever sports trial considered match-fixing charges against four top soccer clubs and 26 officials on Thursday before a string of procedural motions forced an adjournment until next Monday.
Champions Juventus, AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio, four of soccer-mad Italys elite teams, risk being forced out of the nations Serie A league and European competition if found guilty of conspiring with referees to rig matches. |
Temp: -2°C moderate or heavy snow showers
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