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Scenes of thousands of people taking to the streets in violent protest, like those at the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle, are unlikely to be repeated at the G8 summit taking place on July 15-17 in St. Petersburg, according to antiglobalization activists.
The expense of visas and travel to Russia, along with fear of the police, are keeping many foreign protesters at home, activists groups say.
While activists are planning demonstrations in Russia, they are divided on what is the most effective course of action, lack central coordination, and are unsure of just how many protesters will show up.
Antiglobalists, anticapitalists and anarchists are also wary of the media and police associating them with nationalist groups, who may be planning their own protest actions during the G8 meeting. |
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INDEPENDENCE DAY
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Balloons being released at the July 4 Independence Day celebrations organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg on Sunday at the Sharovnya Club on Aptekarsky Prospekt on the Petrograd Side. About 1,000 guests attended the event. |
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MOSCOW — Russia has refused a visa to a British journalist well-known for his coverage of Chechnya and the turbulent Caucasus, citing the needs of “state security”.
Thomas de Waal, who has previously worked in Moscow for the English-language Moscow Times, the St. Petersburg Times, the BBC and the Times, said on Monday he had been due to attend the presentation of a Russian version of his book on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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The majority of Russians are convinced that relations between Muslims and non-Muslims are generally bad, according to a survey published June 22.
In a worldwide study carried out by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, 53 percent of those surveyed in Russia said they did not feel the relations were good. |
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MOSCOW — Fires, traffic accidents and other emergencies killed 4,378 people in Russia in June, Interfax reported on Monday, quoting a source from the information department of the Emergency Situations Ministry. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — With the G8 summit two weeks away and Western criticism of Russia’s internal politics mounting, President Vladimir Putin over the weekend called for the state-controlled media to make sure opposition voices are heard.
“The political system should be balanced and stable,” Putin said at a meeting with leaders of the United Russia party at a Kremlin country facility, Lesniye Dali, outside Moscow. |
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin is warning Western governments not to send representatives to a conference that opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations plan to hold in Moscow just days before the Group of Eight summit, the Financial Times Deutschland reported Friday, citing a presidential aide. |
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MOSCOW — Russia hopes to attract up to 1 million Russian-speaking immigrants from former Soviet republics through a federal program offering passports and perks for relocating to remote areas of the country, a senior Kremlin official said Friday.
“Those participating in the program will be counted in the hundreds of thousands, up to 1 million,” said Modest Kolerov, the head of the Kremlin department for inter-regional and cultural ties with foreign countries, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — After office hours they sing, drink and tell jokes about sperm, and they want the world to know — or they wouldn’t have invited the press.
A group of State Duma deputies and businessmen gathers three times per year at restaurants and casinos to make music. |
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Transas Residency
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — The Council of Experts officially decided June 26 to register the Transas Group as a resident of the Neudorf Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in St. Petersburg.
Transas manufactures shipping security systems, naval and aircraft onboard equipment, navigation and flight simulators, and other advanced technology products. |
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KIEV — Ukraine’s outgoing government won a deal with Moscow on Friday to keep the price of gas imports from Russia unchanged for three more months, without resolving a dispute that could still disrupt flows to Europe this winter. |
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MOSCOW — Arcelor shareholders dumped Severstal owner Alexei Mordashov’s offer at a Friday meeting in Luxembourg — with not a single shareholder voting in favor of his merger bid.
The shareholder revolt, a little over a month after Arcelor’s board backed the Severstal offer, represents a dramatic setback for Mordashov’s ambitions to become a major player in the global steel industry. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma has approved in a second reading a bill that would almost double the amount of deposit insurance available to retail customers at Russian banks. |
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Norbert Gooren, general manager at AAA MOVERS RUSSIA, has always been interested in transport and the business of moving. Having started working by combining the roles of a truck driver and warehouse worker over ten years ago, he soon jumped up the career ladder, gaining international work experience in management and eventually starting his own business in St. |
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Skype’s globally popular and convenient IP-telephony service may face local market resistance following the launch of Russian provider Telphin ‘s Tel-Me project. |
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As crime increases, so have measures to safeguard property, making use of any appropriate advances in technology. If before it was enough to have an ordinary mechanical code lock on the entrance door, now an intercom system, preferably with video spy hole, is mandatory — even better is to install CCTV. |
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Limited edition bottles of ‘G8 vodka,’ may be one of the best business ideas to emerge in the run up to the G8 summit taking place in St. Petersburg July 15-17. |
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In less than a month the Group of Eight will convene for a summit in St. Petersburg, and energy security will loom large on the summit’s agenda. Never has there been a moment when the issue of energy has been more important to the future of the global economy and global security. |
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If you want to do business in Russia, think banya. Success in Russia depends on learning the bathhouse rules. Unfortunately for Alexei Mordashov, chairman and owner of Severstal Group, Europe also has its own rules. |
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Supporters of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili may have been somewhat buoyed by the results of his meeting with President Vladimir Putin on June 13. Saakashvili and the ruling United National Movement party have seen their popularity fade since the Rose Revolution that swept them to power in 2003, so the Georgian president’s strong and emotional comments during his diplomatic fencing with Putin may have scored him some points with voters. |
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My friend arrived at my dacha the other night bearing six bottles of wine. Oh joy! I had drunk my last half a glass of shiraz the night before.
“It’s as if I had brought ice cream in 1983!” she commented. |
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That the United States, once touted as the “world’s greatest democracy,” is now ruled by a presidential dictatorship is a fact beyond any serious dispute. Indeed, except for a bare majority in the Supreme Court — which will disappear with the retirement or demise of the aging Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the Court’s stinging rejection of Bush’s kangaroo military tribunals this week — the nation’s political establishment seems to have accepted this revolutionary system with remarkable docility, even as its lineaments are further exposed week by week. |
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A distributor believes her movies are being counterfeited. She writes a script, finds actors, hires a gumshoe and tracks down a suspect.
LOS ANGELES — After six months on the trail of a suspected Russian pirate, Joan Borsten was closing in.
She had staked out the scruffy-looking young man she thought was strangling her film distribution business. |
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LIEGE, Belgium — Belgium mourned seven-year-old Stacy Lemmens, found strangled with another school girl three weeks after they vanished, as investigators awaited DNA test results to home in on their killer.
In rare television scenes harking back to the Marc Dutroux paedophile murders in the 1990s, which indelibly marked the country, national stations broadcast Stacy’s funeral service live from the eastern city of Liege. |
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VALENCIA, Spain — At least 34 people were killed and more than 20 seriously injured on Monday when a speeding underground train ran off the tracks and overturned in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, officials said. |
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LOS ANGELES, California — “Superman Returns” leapt in a single bound to the front of the box office in its first weekend, but the man of steel found the iron women of “The Devil Wears Prada” standing next in line with a dazzling debut.
The Warner Bros. |
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — The destruction of the U.S. space shuttle Columbia in 2003 not only spurred NASA to figure out a way to save a stranded space shuttle crew, but also how to get their damaged ship back home. |
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AMMAN — Jordan said on Monday that Saddam Hussein’s eldest daughter Raghd and her children were guests of the royal family and did not engage in any political activities.
Iraq on Sunday put Raghd on the 41 “most wanted” list, along with her mother Sajida and top Baathists and al Qaeda leaders. |
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BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip — Palestinian militants who abducted an Israeli soldier gave Israel less than 24 hours on Monday to meet their demands to release Palestinian prisoners, threatening unspecified consequences if it refused. |
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LONDON — Departing coach Sven-Goran Eriksson was subjected to a torrent of abuse on Monday as media critics put the boot in after England’s World Cup failure.
“Swedish Flop” and “Golden Fleecer” were some of the epithets hurled in the Swede’s direction by British newspapers after England’s quarter-final defeat on penalties to Portugal in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday. |
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FRANKFURT, Germany — World Player of the Year Ronaldinho and coach Carlos Alberto Parreira took the brunt of the criticism as the Brazilian media reacted angrily to their team’s World Cup quarterfinal defeat to France. |
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Schumi Wins in U.S.
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (Reuters) — Michael Schumacher won the U.S. Grand Prix on Sunday in a Ferrari one-two that slammed the brakes on Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso’s run of success.
Schumacher’s 87th career win, from pole position and ahead of Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa, trimmed Alonso’s overall championship lead to 19 points after 10 of the season’s 18 races. |
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BERLIN — Italy will have to do what no other team has done before and beat Germany in Dortmund on Tuesday if they are to reach the World Cup final.
Unbeaten Germany was not considered among the favorites before the tournament, but the host nation has gone from strength to strength, winning four of its five games to set up the semifinal clash with Italy. |
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BADEN BADEN, Germany — An emotional David Beckham quit on Sunday as England captain after almost six years in the wake of their World Cup quarterfinal defeat by Portugal.
The England midfielder, on the verge of tears, read a statement announcing he would step down with the change of manager as Sven-Goran Eriksson hands over to Steve McClaren. |
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