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MOSCOW — Unified Energy Systems has changed its breakup plan, inserting an interim phase of state control that analysts said could put off full privatization of the power sector for another five years. “Our decision marks a very important balance, a compromise, taking into account our minority shareholders and our major shareholders,” UES chief Anatoly Chubais said during a conference call Friday evening. The new reform plan, which was approved Friday by the UES board of directors, amounts to an extremely complicated asset swap between the government and two UES subsidiaries. The change will allow the state to maintain its grip on the Federal Grid Company and the country’s biggest producer of hydroelectricity, Hydro-OGK, even after UES ceases to exist in 2008. |
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 Thousands of demonstrators gathered on Nevsky Prospekt on Saturday in support of opposition coalition Other Russia for an unofficial event called “a march of dissenters. |
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TALLINN — Center-right Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, who backs more tax cuts but is reluctant to brake the economy to speed euro adoption, said on Monday all options were open for a new coalition after a slim election win. Ansip, who has overseen growth of more than 11 percent, has been in power since April 2005 with the left-leaning Center Party. |
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University Status ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg State University might receive “federal status” in 2007, Rosbalt news agency reported Friday, citing the university’s head Ludmila Verbitskaya. Designing its own study programs (instead of running the country-wide standardized versions) and greater financial freedom are among the expected benefits from the move, Verbitskaya told Rosbalt. |
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Avalanche Hits Resort MOSCOW (Reuters) — An avalanche killed a 10-year-old child in a ski resort Sunday, Interfax reported. Interfax quoted local emergency officials as saying a total of four people had been swept away after the avalanche hit the Krasnaya Polyana resort near the town of Sochi, which is competing to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. |
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NOVO-OGARYOVO, Moscow Region — President Vladimir Putin on Friday met with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt to discuss the building of a large gas storage facility in Belgium that could become a hub for exports to Europe. Meeting at Putin’s residence outside Moscow, the two leaders discussed ways to increase cooperation in diamonds, electricity and the nuclear industry, with energy talks topping the agenda. |
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U.S. carmaker Ford has reached a deal on conditions and pay at its plant in Russia, giving its workers several long-awaited concessions, company and labor union officials said Thursday. |
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Wild Lingerie MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Wild Orchid, a Russian lingerie retailer, sold a 20 percent stake to an investment fund before an initial public offering planned for 2009, Vedomosti reported Monday. The Greater Europe Fund, managed by Wermuth Asset Management, paid $50 million for the holding and has an option to buy a further 13 percent stake, President Alexander Fyodorov told the Russian newspaper. |
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HELSINKI — Finland and Sweden voiced concern on Friday about the potential environmental impact of a gas pipeline under the sea from Russia to Germany. |
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 Over the last few years the number of wealthy Russians investing in Finnish real estate has increased considerably. The country offers acres of unspoilt countryside and relatively low prices. The latest offering for the Russian millionaire is Rantalinna, or ‘Shore Castle,’ a 1,500 square-meter stone manor built in the art nouveau style and situated on the shores of Lake Saimaa, 20 kilometers from Imatra and 53 kilometers from Imatra Airport — a bargain at 3. |
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This is a column in defense of business. For many years I’ve written on rude entrepreneurs and shrewd lawyers, hostile takeovers and corrupt ways to get good contracts or property as well as those shameless corporations that thrust their new, improved goods on consumers and banks that promise fantastic interest rates. All these things are typical in business, and not only in Russia. Our national specialty is the turning of gangsters into decent business people who invest their money in respectable businesses like gas-stations, shopping malls, restaurants or casinos. They prefer to forget their past and often end up sponsoring the church, probably in order to atone for their former sins. |
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 Like nearly everything else in the world these days, it now appears that global stock market corrections are made in China. The rout Tuesday that began in China may have been an anomaly, or the start of something big. |
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Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov tried to lure Japanese investors during this week’s visit to Tokyo with the following description of Russian markets: “You can’t say that business is risk-free … but the presence of risks in Russia makes standard profits higher. |
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My generation arrived in this world when the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in a Cold War. I’ve spent 40 years — all my adult life — studying the United States and Russian-American relations, and now I’m afraid that when my generation leaves this world, the United States and Russia will be adversaries again. |
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COPENHAGEN — Demolition work began on Monday at a youth center at the heart of a dispute that sparked violent street clashes between protesters and police in the Danish capital. Police fought the street battles with hundreds of youths last week after squatters were evicted from the building in the blue-collar, multi-ethnic neighborhood of Norrebro. “We hope they will show their frustration only vocally, but we are out there on the streets, taking no chances,” said Per Larsen, a Copenhagen police spokesman, in an interview on Danish television TV2 News. A crane began tearing down the structure, which has been sealed off since the disturbances. The identity of the demolition company had been painted over on the crane and workers wore masks to conceal their faces. |
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BAGHDAD BOMB
/ Reuters
Smoke rises from burning buildings after a car bomb attack in Baghdad on Monday that killed 26 people and set shops and cars ablaze. |
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LONDON — The top share index tumbled 1.6 percent by mid-session on Monday amid a global sell-off, as a surge in the yen and the unwinding of carry trades rattled investors. By 11.25 a.m., the FTSE 100 was down 98 points, or 1.6 percent at 6,018.6, its lowest since Dec. 1, as miners, oil shares and banks led the slide. The index plunged nearly 5 percent last week.
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TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that Japan would not apologise again for forcing women, mostly Asians, to act as wartime sex slaves for its soldiers even if U.S. lawmakers adopt a resolution calling for an apology. Abe, seeking to bolster support among his conservative base, has already sparked diplomatic ire by appearing to question the state’s role in forcing the women to prostitute themselves for soldiers during World War Two. |
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ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian security forces scoured a remote north-eastern region on Monday in search of a group of kidnapped Europeans, including British embassy officials. |
 SELMA, Alabama — Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, joined by former President Bill Clinton, courted black voters at a hallowed civil rights shrine on Sunday and said the movement’s leaders had set the stage for their White House bids. |
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BEIJING — China will do more to save energy and cut pollution in 2007 while striving to keep its economy humming following four straight years of double-digit growth, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Monday. |
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 LONDON — Carolina Kluft’s epic battle for pentathlon gold with Kelly Sotherton at the European indoor championships may have given the Swede a competitive boost before this year’s worlds in Osaka. Kluft has not been beaten in a combined event competition since March 2002 but the world, Olympic and European heptathlon champion almost lost that record in Birmingham when only a personal best in the final event, the 800 meters, took her to victory over Britain’s Sotherton. |
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FC Zenit St. Petersburg won its first match of the soccer season Sunday against Saturn in the Russia Cup, with a 1:0 victory that Zenit coach Dick Advocaat said gives the St. |
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DUBAI — No sooner does Roger Federer break one record than he seems to set his sights on another. A few days after making it 161 consecutive weeks as world number one, breaking the record held by Jimmy Connors, the Swiss maestro defeated Russian Mikhail Yuzhny in Saturday’s Dubai Open final to equal Bjorn Borg’s total of 41 wins in a row. |
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LONDON — Round-up of the weekend’s action from Europe’s top leagues: ENGLAND Manchester United overcame another major hurdle in their quest to wrestle the Premier League title back from Chelsea with a last-gasp 1-0 victory over Liverpool at Anfield. |
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LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former world number one Lleyton Hewitt beat Austrian Juergen Melzer 6-4 7-6 to win the Las Vegas Open on Sunday, his first tournament victory in eight months. The Australian came back from 4-1 down in the second set and saved four set points before winning an epic tiebreak to clinch his 26th career title, making amends for his defeat by American James Blake in the final 12 months ago. |
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A total of 2.3 million square meters of real estate were constructed or reconstructed in St. Petersburg in 2006. Local experts are confident that this year will again be productive for entrepreneurs and investors. New ambitious projects and deals are on their way. Boom in Development Commercial real estate is thriving thanks to ever-increasing investments into the local economy. Foreign and local companies are in need of business centers and logistic facilities as well as industrial zones to establish production sites. This year St. Petersburg authorities will continue the development of industrial areas, the press service of the Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade said earlier this month in a statement. |
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 St. Petersburg ranks as one of the regions in Russia with the lowest level of investment risk. In November last year the national rating agency Expert RA put the city in first place in a list of Russian regions with “the lowest investment risk in 2005-2006,” praising it for “the high efficiency of regional governance. |
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Privately held businesses worldwide are now starting to capitalize on opportunities to trade with the fast-growing BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR) says. These countries are expected to represent 44 percent of global GDP by 2050. Far from being a threat, the growth of Brazil, Russia, India and China has been positive for businesses over the last two to three years. The survey explores the views of 7,200 business leaders in 32 countries that represent 81 percent of global GDP. “Businesses are increasingly finding ways of doing business with the fast-expanding boom economies of the BRIC countries. |
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 St. Petersburg’s retail market today is one of Russia’s most dynamic. Growing personal incomes coupled with a lack of quality shopping space in the city mean that developers and retail chain operators, both Russian and international, are actively trying to establish their presence on the country’s second biggest market. |
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CEOs from all over the world remain optimistic that Russia and other members of BRIC (Brazil, India and China) will see strong economic growth over the year ahead, PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a survey released in January this year. CEOs’ confidence in business has reached a record level — over 90 percent of the 1,100 CEOs surveyed across 50 countries are upbeat about growth in revenues over the next 12 months. |
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