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MOSCOW — Russia plans to launch a direct competitor to the U.S. GPS satellite navigation system next year using military technology developed in the Cold War era, project leaders said on Monday. Drivers, hill walkers, sailors and army commanders around the world navigate using satellite technology developed by the U.S. military. Soon they will be able to switch to a Soviet-designed rival — GLONASS. “We are planning to deliver all sorts of devices already available on GPS,” said Alexander Gurko, the chairman of M2M Telematics which manufacturers satellite navigation equipment. GPS stands for Global Positioning System. “From next year we will start producing a consumer product from GLONASS,” Gurko said. |
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THREE MEN IN A BOAT
Alexander Demianchuk / Reuters
Three fishermen casting lines from a dinghy on the Neva River on Monday, near the Cruiser Aurora. Temperatures are set to rise during the week with highs of 9 deg. Celsius, though rain is forecasted during the early part of the week. |
 BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — A Soyuz TMA-10 space capsule bearing billionaire Microsoft pioneer Charles Simonyi soared toward the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday, making him the world’s fifth space tourist. Kazakhstan’s black sky lit up with orange and yellow flames as the rocket took off on schedule late Saturday, carrying Simonyi toward the ISS along with Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Fyodor Yurchikhin.
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Opposition groups that are planning a march of dissent on Sunday have invited Governor Valentina Matviyenko to attend the protest rally to respond to criticism of her policies. An umbrella organization that includes the United Civil Front, National Bolshevik Party and smaller protest groups is organizing the protest event at midday on Sunday outside the Theater For Young Spectators. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW — About 600 young people gathered under imperial black banners on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad on Sunday as their leaders pledged support to President Vladimir Putin and vowed to fight an “orange revolution” in Russia. The Eurasian Youth Union, a nationalist group whose chief ideologist, Alexander Dugin, has close ties to the Kremlin, had planned a march along Tverskaya Ulitsa, but city authorities only sanctioned the two-hour rally near Mayakovskaya metro station. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma sided on Friday with Ukraine’s parliament in its defiance of President Viktor Yushchenko’s decree dissolving the legislature and ordering new elections. |
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MOSCOW — The State Duma faction of the Liberal Democratic Party has ousted two of its most prominent deputies for refusing to participate in regional elections in March, party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said Friday. Zhirinovsky said the two — Suleiman Kerimov, Russia’s second-richest businessman, and Oleg Malyshkin, who ran for president in 2004 — had refused to run on the party’s regional lists during elections to regional legislatures on March 11. |
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MOSCOW — U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez painted a rosy picture of U.S.-Russian ties during a meeting with economics students last Monday and said post-Soviet reforms had prepared Russia to join the World Trade Organization. |
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Cisco Systems has announced an $18 million investment into leading Russian e-commerce site Ozon.ru as part of the more regular financing of venture projects and technological start-ups in Russia. “While Russia has low Internet penetration in terms of a percentage of its overall population, in absolute terms, it has as many Internet users as some Western European countries,” Bob Agee, vice president of Cisco Russia, said in a statement issued last week. “The amount of technical talent in Russia shows that the country is ready to become more technologically advanced. Increased investment in communications infrastructure can help improve productivity, diversify the economy and increase the standard of living across the country,” Agee said. |
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 DOHA — Leading gas powers discussed on Monday the idea of transforming their benign grouping into an OPEC-style cartel, but sought to reassure consumer nations that it was business as usual for now. |
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Polymetal, the country’s third-largest gold miner, plans to spend $150 million to $200 million by 2010 to develop its Albazino project in the country’s Far East as part of a wider expansion, the company said Friday. St. Petersburg-based Polymetal plans to build two plants to process ore and concentrate from the deposit, which will produce at least 200,000 to 250,000 ounces per year of gold, almost as much as the company’s entire production of the metal last year. |
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MOSCOW — MMK, Russia’s third-largest steel maker, said on Monday it had set the price range for its international share float at $12.25-$15.50 per global depositary receipt. |
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Analysts have praised Russian companies for record levels of M&A transactions last year, more than any other country in the CIS and Central and Eastern Europe. Ernst & Young estimated transactions involving Russian companies to have totaled $71 billion last year — a 41 percent increase on the 2005 figures. |
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MOSCOW — The country’s balance of payments looks to be shifting away from exports and toward the domestically oriented import market, but analysts are unsure that there is enough momentum to make this shift successfully. |
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MOSCOW — Yukos’ production and refining assets near the Volga River will be sold May 10 at a bankruptcy auction, the Federal Property Fund said Saturday in a notice published in Rossiiskaya Gazeta. The lot includes Samaraneftegaz, an oil-production unit in the Samara region, about 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow, and the Samara refineries of Novokuibyshev, Kuibyshev and Syzran. |
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MOSCOW — Room exists for a cautious easing of federal budget policy after years of fiscal prudence and for some of the country’s massive oil wealth to be invested in the economy, the chairman of the Central Bank said Friday. |
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Reuters MOSCOW — The country’s oil reserves shrank by 7.3 billion barrels from 1994 to 2005 as the country failed to replace dwindling West Siberian reserves with new discoveries in East Siberia and other regions, an official said Friday. “The proportion of reserves that can be extracted has fallen from 42 percent at the start of the 1990s to 27 percent,” Sergei Fyodorov, head of subsoil policy at the Natural Resources Ministry, told a conference. |
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MOSCOW — Cabinet ministers gave Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Kirill Androsov a rough ride Friday when he proposed bolstering the country’s privatization plans. |
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MOSCOW — AvtoVAZ and Canada’s Magna International are struggling to meet their goal of jointly making a car they can sell for under $12,000, Vedomosti reported Friday, citing unidentified people familiar with the project. The projected retail price of the new model has risen 10 percent since the two companies formed a venture in December and may rise as much as 20 percent, the newspaper said. |
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Reuters MOSCOW — The ruble will appreciate slightly less quickly in 2007 than last year provided oil prices stay at current levels, Central Bank Chairman Sergei Ignatyev said Friday. |
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MUMBAI — Russian aluminium giant Rusal has approached India’s Essar Group to jointly build a 1 million tonne alumina refinery in Orissa, the Economic Times reported on Monday, citing sources in Essar. The paper, which estimated the cost of such a project at about $1 billion, quoted Essar sources as saying there were informal talks with Rusal, although “nothing has taken off. |
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Reuters MOSCOW — Gazprom wants to buy into OGK-5 and TGK-5 when the state privatizes the two electricity firms, a source close to the company said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — The government may put back a decision on whether to raise taxes on gas production, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said Friday. “On the question of a possible increase in taxation, we’ll probably have to come back to that toward the end of the year,” Khristenko told reporters. |
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 For Russians the current political imbroglio in Kiev was similar to the struggle for power that took place in Moscow in September and October 1993. On the outside, the two episodes look almost identical. In both cases, the heads of state lost patience with endless opposition from the parliament and opted to call for new elections. |
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Just when the political noise had subsided over the idea of amending the Constitution to allow President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term, recently re-elected Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov has proposed that the Constitution be amended to allow the president to serve three consecutive terms of five to seven years, rather than the current two terms of four years. |
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The Chairman of Sberbank Northwest, the region’s largest bank, Leonid Shats, resigned last week. He was followed by several top-managers. The circumstances around this resignation are mysterious. Officially, Shats stepped down voluntarily. But unofficial sources say he was forced to resign after the bank underwent an inspection. |
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With the May holidays just weeks away, hordes of Russians are furiously planning trips abroad, after which they will furiously recount how people abroad treated them like Russian hordes. |
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LONDON — The head of the Dutch Central Bank said regulators would not object in principle to an offer by a rival bidder for ABN Amro even if it meant the Dutch bank was broken up, the Financial Times reported on Monday. “It might be that a solid bank takes over and decides to restructure,” Nout Wellink, president of the Dutch Central bank, told the newspaper. |
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LONDON — Oil fell below $64 a barrel on Monday, extending declines that followed Iran’s release last week of 15 British sailors and marines. The two-week detention of the UK military personnel by Iran had driven U. |
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WASHINGTON — The World Bank is carrying out a review that will lead to the aid agency cutting back or even abandoning some activities to focus resources where they can be most effective, Paul Wolfowitz told the Financial Times. The World Bank president said he had charged Francois Bourguignon, its chief economist, with drawing up the new strategy for the world’s biggest multilateral aid agency. |
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 LONDON — Britain’s Ministry of Defense faced fierce criticism on Monday for letting 15 sailors and marines held captive in Iran sell their stories to the media. The two sailors who have so far done so have also been roundly admonished, with former military commanders suggesting they were being used as pawns in a government propaganda war. Faye Turney, the 25-year-old mother who was the only woman captive, has given exclusive interviews to Britain’s leading tabloid newspaper and to a television news program, earning what one newspaper said was $197,000. She said the Iranians asked how she felt about dying for her country and warned she may never see her daughter again. Iran freed the group on Thursday, 13 days after surrounding their boats in what it said was its territory but Britain said was Iraq’s. |
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A CROSS TO BEAR
Yonathan Weitzman / Reuters
A man depicting Jesus Christ carries a cross during a Good Friday re-enactment in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday. |
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PARIS — France’s presidential election campaign officially began on Monday with candidates unveiling television and radio spots to try and win over the vast army of undecided voters. The twelve hopefuls have been sparring for months appearing regularly in the media and making campaign stops around France ahead of the first-round vote on April 22. As of Monday broadcasters will have to follow strict electoral rules including equal airtime for each of the candidates to make sure the campaign is fair.
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LOS ANGELES — Bad-boy directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez fell victims to a box office bloodbath on Sunday as their ambitious double feature “Grindhouse” bombed during its first weekend of release. The three-and-a-quarter hour film — actually a package of two movies honoring the low-budget horror movies of the 1970s — opened at No. |
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HANOI — A small white mouse running around a Boeing 777 delayed a Vietnam Airlines flight to Tokyo for more than four hours, newspapers reported on Monday. |
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 AUGUSTA, Georgia — Zach Johnson, defying all the odds, held off a late challenge by four-times champion Tiger Woods to claim his first major title by two shots at the Masters on Sunday. Two strokes off the pace overnight, the 31-year-old American fired a three-under-par 69 at a sun-drenched, fast-running Augusta National to finish on one-over 289. |
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LONDON — Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix was a vindication for Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and, above all, McLaren. There can be no doubt now that double champion Alonso made an astute move in jumping from Renault to a team that failed to win a race in 2006, and no more uncertainty about McLaren’s wisdom of appointing 22-year-old rookie Lewis Hamilton as his team mate. |
 LONDON — Marat Safin once again proved Russia’s Davis Cup hero of the hour, putting the defending champions into the semi-finals with a victory in the deciding rubber against France on Sunday. The former world number one’s 7-6 6-3 6-2 triumph over Paul-Henri Mathieu gave Russia a 3-2 win and a place in September’s semi-finals against Germany. Safin had performed a similarly vital role in four previous deciding rubbers in Davis Cup, including in last year’s final when he clinched victory over Argentina to give the Russians their second title. |
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 ST JOHN’S, Antigua — Australia first contained then crushed England on Sunday with another ruthless exhibition of one-day cricket in the World Cup Super Eights. |
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 Summer doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to arrive in St. Petersburg. But with snow still flying around the Northern Capital, the city’s fashionistas have one significant advantage — next season’s fashions or elements from them can be worn right away. The St. |
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L’Oreal Cosmetique Active distribution company opened its first Skin Health Center in the Petropharm drugstore on Nevsky Prospekt last month. Managers are hoping to repeat the success of their Moscow center that opened last year and significantly increased sales of dermocosmetics. |
 Called “Gold and Silver Jewellery: The Transformation of a Tradition in the 20th Century,” the new display traces the path art jewellery has taken during the past century. The collection on display bridges the art and craft of jewellery making by showcasing more than 100 artefacts from the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts by some of the world’s finest artists. |
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“This drink has a magical power,” he wrote. “It strengthens the weak, and revives those who have fainted. Those tired after work and physical activity can return their life forces by this drink much sooner than by nourishment. |
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Over the last few years, the word “spa” has become very popular in Russia as a synonym for the way wealthy and successful people relax. However, many Russians still have a very vague impression of what a spa really is. Some of them use it to mean a beauty salon, others consider that a true “spa-salon” can exist only as part of a magnificent spa resort situated on the sea. |
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