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BISHKEK — Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Thursday signed a new constitution that will reduce his powers, a climbdown that defused a political crisis which had brought thousands of opposition protesters onto the streets.Bakiyev signed the constitution in front of reporters ending a tense week of pressure by the opposition that had staged mass protests threatening the Central Asian state's fragile stability.
The opposition had said Bakiyev, who came to power in July last year, should quit if he did not agree to the new constitution. The document will transfer to parliament the power to appoint the government.
Despite the curtailing of his powers, Bakiyev said the deal was a victory for stability. |
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
City officials and Gazprom representatives looking at a proposed design for Gazprom's new HQ to be built in St. Petersburg. |
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Victory by the Democrats in U.S. congressional elections will mean a tougher line toward Russia on human rights and possible accession to the World Trade Organization, Russian politicians and media said on Thursday."The success of the opposition in the congressional polls will harden U.S. policy toward Russia," the respected daily newspaper Kommersant said.
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World-leading architects revealed on Wednesday sky-high designs for Gazprom's new headquarters to be built in St. Petersburg. The construction of the skyscraper for the state energy giant, to be built on the other side of the Neva River to Smolny Cathedral by 2012, represents a turning point for the city's development and will change the city's skyline forever, experts say. |
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The Anglican church community in St. Petersburg will observe Remembrance Day on Sunday with a traditional service at St. Catherines Swedish Lutheran Church on Malakonnyushenaya Ulitsa. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW — The distributor of a hit Hollywood film featuring boorish Kazakh TV reporter Borat decided not to show it in Russian cinemas after officials advised it may cause offence, Russian officials said on Thursday.The film, the surprise No. 1 at the U. |
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BERLIN — Markus Wolf, the legendary East German spymaster whose Cold War activities earned him the moniker "The Man Without a Face," has died aged 83.Wolf's publisher said he had died peacefully in his sleep in the German capital early on Thursday morning, 17 years to the day after the Berlin Wall fell. |
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MOSCOW — Russia's Supreme Court overturned on Thursday the acquittal of two defendants in the high-profile murder of U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov and ordered a retrial. Klebnikov's family hailed the ruling as a "hopeful signal for justice and the rule of law" in Russia. |
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MOSCOW — Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani will visit Moscow on Friday amid concern in the West about Russia's readiness to back UN sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program. |
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German giant Henkel, the maker of Persil detergent and Fa shampoo, has signaled out Russia as the company's most important emerging market. The claim came on Wednesday at a press conference reporting the group's financial results for the third quarter of 2006. |
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Local holding Strategiya Rost will invest $25 million into the construction of a new multi-brand car dealership on the corner of the ring-road and Murmanskoye Shosse, Prime-TASS reported Tuesday. |
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MOSCOW — Businesses remain nearly as opaque in the eyes of investors as they were a year ago, Standard and Poor's said Wednesday.After surveying the 70 biggest listed companies in the country, the rating agency concluded that the overall trend in Russia's corporate transparency is one of "stagnation. |
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Lenenergo SharenST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko asked the city government to reserve 3 billion rubles ($112.4 million) in the 2007 budget to buy 25 percent of local energy utility Lenenergo, Vedomosti said Wednesday. |
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TBILISI —Georgia rejected a compromise deal with Gazprom on Wednesday, leaving it with the prospect of either paying twice the price for gas or having supplies cut off.Gazprom on Tuesday reiterated an offer to soften the increase if Tbilisi handed over control of its domestic gas distribution network. |
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An uncritical acceptance of alarming recent accounts from Central Europe would lead one to conclude that the region is discarding democracy and descending toward destructive nationalism. Such perceptions are not only distorted, but they may damage the European project on three counts: by promoting international divisions, countering European Union enlargement and bolstering an expansionist Russia. |
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Confidence in the business climate took another hit this week when prosecutors called for TNK-BP's Rospan unit to be stripped of its license for a gas field in west Siberia. |
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The prosecutor's office for the Southern Federal District has released a statement about an ongoing investigation into a shootout between Chechen and Ingush OMON special forces officers at the Volga-20 police checkpoint on Sept. 13."At present, the identities of those who committed these crimes are being established, and their actions will receive the appropriate legal response," the statement reads. |
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 Retaining a radical stance forged during the golden age of Russian Rock, Vasily Shumov uses new technology to expose old hypocracies about religion and politics.Russian rock might have lost momentum after its heyday in the 1980s, but one of the most interesting and radical voices of that generation can still be heard via the internet from 10,000 kilometers away — that of Los Angeles-based electronic musician and multimedia artist Vasily Shumov, whose band, Center, was one of the best-known and most original bands in Moscow during the '80s rock explosion. |
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A classical music festival named in honor of the 19th century Russian pianist and educator puts some of the best young performers center stage.The Second International Anton Rubinstein Festival begins Sunday with the aim of presenting young musicians and their well-known teachers at venues in St. |
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To ban a satire is the silliest move possible. It proves that there is some truth to the satire, and that is exactly what Russia has shown with "Borat!: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," Sacha Baron Cohen's side-splitting satire about outrageous Kazakstani reporter Borat Sagdiyev roaming the U. |
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Vladimir Nabokov's "A Guide to Berlin" written in 1925 tells the story of a character wandering around the European city, watching new pipes being installed, mailmen delivering letters, and bakers taking out trays of fresh bread and pastries. |
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Nikolai Maslov was born in 1954, too late for the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviet Union termed its role in World War II, but early enough to put him squarely into middle age by perestroika and its aftermath. He was born to a telephone lineman and a homemaker in a village in western Siberia: an impeccable class background, for what little that was worth. |
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SAN ANTONIO, United States — Tony Parker scored 29 points and Tim Duncan added 26 as the San Antonio Spurs used a late surge to seal an 111-106 overtime win over the slumping Phoneix Suns.The Suns suffered their third straight National Basketball Association defeat, as forward Amara Stoudemire's first start of the season was spoiled. |
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BEIJING — China, eager to ensure national glory at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, has banned its athletes from taking part in advertising and public relations work, local media reported on Thursday. |
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SHANGHAI — Tiger Woods found at least one spectator in the throng around him at the Champions tournament on Thursday who could relate to being a multi-millionaire dominating his sport — Roger Federer.Tennis world number one Federer, who is in Shanghai for next week's season-ending Masters Cup tournament, watched the last few holes of the Woods's round before the pair chatted for more than five minutes in the clubhouse. |
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PHNOM PENH — Cambodia is pinning its hopes on either a wrestler, a snooker player or a taekwondo fighter to win the country's first Asian Games medal in 36 years. |
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ST. PETERSBURG — It was Peter the Great who in the early 18th century first invited Dutch craftsmen to help him build the city that still bears his name.Three centuries later another Dutch master, by the name of Dick Advocaat, has been brought to the city on the shores of the Baltic Sea to revive the sagging hopes of local soccer side Zenit. |
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DETROIT — Dominik Hasek didn't have to work too hard for a shutout.He only had to stop 16 shots to earn his 70th career shutout and lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 3-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night. |
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MOSCOW — Reigning champions CSKA Moscow failed to clinch their second consecutive Russian Premier League title after suffering a 2-0 defeat at Samara.CSKA nevertheless stay top with 55 points from 28 matches, three points ahead of city rivals Spartak with another Moscow side Lokomotiv third on 47. |
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LONDON — Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan hopes he may be able to play in the final three Ashes tests, the Independent newspaper reported on Thursday. |
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