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Disappointed by the recent election of Igor Mikhailov, a United Russia politician as the first St. Petersburg ombudsman, a wide range of local human rights groups joined forces to establish the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council, an umbrella group aimed at voluntarily carrying out the ombudsman’s duties. Member organizations include, among others, human rights groups Citizens’ Watch, Memorial, Soldiers’ Mothers, For Russia Without Racism, the League of Voters, the environmental organization Bellona and the non-governmental Museum of Galina Starovoitova foundation. Two alternative candidates for the ombudsman’s job — Yuly Rybakov, head of the human rights faction of the local branch of liberal Yabloko party and Natalya Yevdokimova, an advisor to Sergei Mironov, head of the Federation Council — have also joined the new association. |
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CRANE COLLAPSE
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A policeman walks past a crane that toppled onto a building in the Primorsky district of the city on Monday. A worker who was in the process of dismantling the crane was severely injured. |
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After a decade as a Mafiosi-rocked city, followed by five years as the hate-crime capital of Russia, St. Petersburg may finally be emerging as a symbol of calm, according to an official report in which the city registered the nation’s lowest crime rate in the first six months of this year. However, a sharp rise in economic, drug and organized crime still tarnishes the image of the city and the North-West Federal District, according to the report.
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All photos from issue.
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 Russia’s only surviving Soviet submarine of the S-189 class, now docked at the Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment opposite the Admiral Nakhimov monument, is set to become a new private museum in the city. Andrei Artyushin, the head of the project, said all seven compartments of the submarine will be accessible, including the torpedo room, two living compartments, the central control compartment, the emergency compartment housing the escape hatch and life-saving appliances, the electric motor room and the engine compartment. |
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About 2,000 people in a Far East fishing town have moved into temporary tent camps after a powerful quake hit near Sakhalin island, killing two people, injuring 12 and leaving apartment buildings in ruins, officials said Friday. |
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MOSCOW — Just over two months after being criticized by the presidential envoy to the Northwest Federal District, Novgorod region governor Mikhail Prusak, one of the country’s longest serving regional leaders, resigned unexpectedly Friday. President Vladimir Putin has appointed Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Mitin as acting governor. |
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Hooligans Busted ST. PETERSBURG — At a soccer match between Dynamo Moscow and St. Petersburg’s Zenit team in Moscow on Saturday, police detained 69 hooligans, the majority of whom were inebriated, Fontanka. |
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MOSCOW — Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Russia might open a criminal case against Andrei Lugovoi, whose extradition Britain is seeking on charges of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, if London provides proof of his guilt. “If we are convinced — just like [Britain] — that this is a serious case, then we have a wealth of precedents when we would open a criminal case of our own, hold court hearings and read out the verdict,” Lavrov was quoted by national news agencies as saying. |
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MOSCOW — Belarus was spared a cut in gas supplies on Friday after paying part of its $456 million debt to Gazprom, which said Minsk should pay in full within a week or see its gas deliveries reduced by 30 percent this winter. Beltransgaz on Friday paid $190 million toward the debt it owed Gazprom for gas supplies, meeting the deadline 15 minutes before time, Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said. Gazprom had said it would reduce supplies to Belarus by 45 percent at 10 a.m. Moscow time on Friday if the debt were not settled. The European Union welcomed the deal and canceled an emergency meeting it planned to convene on Wednesday. |
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CART CUSTOM
/ Reuters
People riding a horse and cart pass cars waiting in queue before Latvia's Terehova border point with Russia on Saturday. The crossing is 250 km (155 miles) east of Lativa’s capital Riga. |
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MOSCOW — Billionaire Oleg Deripaska on Friday applied to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service to buy 82 percent of Power Machines, the country’s largest turbine maker, putting him head-to-head with steel baron Alexei Mordashov for control of the company. The bid comes after a similar move by Mordashov, who applied to the service for control of the turbine maker last month.
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Take an oil company — cut the price of oil in half and it should not be hard to guess what happens to the stock. But when it comes to nickel, the same logic does not seem to apply. On Friday, the brutal correction in nickel prices, which have fallen more than 40 percent since May, dipped another 2 percent to reach a 9-month low of $29,325 per ton. |
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Novolipetsk Profit MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Novolipetsk Steel, Russia’s fourth-biggest steelmaker, said profit declined 2.8 percent in the second quarter as costs for raw materials rose. |
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MOSCOW — Russia may give gas export monopoly Gazprom and other firms tax breaks to tap new fields in East Siberia and the arctic Yamal peninsula following similar breaks for oil producers, an official said. “Both Yamal and East Siberia are being discussed . |
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MINSK — It may be better known as the capital city of Europe’s last dictatorship but Minsk is looking to turn itself into an international financial and business hub. |
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HELSINKI — Finnish builder YIT’s April to June profits rose more than expected, boosted by strong housing demand and increasing business in Russia, sending its shares sharply higher. YIT’s operating profit in April to June rose to 78.5 million euros ($108 million) from 60 million euros in the same period a year ago, and compared with the average of 76 million euros expected by analysts in a poll. |
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BELINSKY, Russia — On Russia’s fertile Black Earth, two Englishmen are making money where other investors saw only risk. “All of this was derelict land last year. |
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NOVOIMERETINSKAYA BUKHTA, Krasnodar region — Sochi can relish its victory in the race to host the 2014 Winter Olympics but some local residents fear for their homes ahead of large-scale construction work. Ivan Tereutov’s ancestors spent a century wandering in exile in Turkey before they returned to their native Russia and settled in Novoimeretinskaya Bukhta, a quiet corner in a large valley on the Black Sea coast near Sochi. |
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VLADIVOSTOK — Far Eastern Shipping Company, or FESCO, said Friday that it had raised $206 million through a rights share issue equivalent to 15 percent of its expanded equity capital. |
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 The relationship between borrowers and credit organizations has captured the attention of the government, the general public and the mass media. This is due to the sharp growth in consumer-credit lending and the subsequent conflicts between financial institutions and their customers. |
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Can economics teach us a lesson on how to teach history? It turns out that it can. There is a law in economics stating that when suppliers cannot meet the demand of consumers for whatever reason, this results in deficits and the emergence of a black market. |
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 Why did Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas come to Moscow? The visit — his fifth, or by some accounts, sixth — had originally been planned for an earlier date, but Abbas postponed the trip due to turbulent events at home. In June, the militant opposition group Hamas staged an “Islamist revolt” and seized power in the Gaza Strip, branding the head of the Palestinian Authority a traitor. |
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In the latest interview given by former security services officer Andrei Lugovoi, whose extradition on suspicion of murder is being sought by Britain, there was a remarkable moment that doesn’t seem to have been fully appreciated. |
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It has been Rupert Murdoch’s good fortune and also his misfortune to have been demonized as the great media bogeyman of our times. It has been his fortune because it gives him a profile and an edge that can leave some scared by his business acumen, his will to win and what many perceive as his thirst for power. |
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LISBON — A French daredevil climber, who has scaled skyscrapers around the world, was arrested once again on Monday after reaching the top of a bridge overlooking Lisbon. Alain Robert, 44, also known as the French Spiderman, used no ropes when he climbed the 190 metres over the Tagus River during rush hour on Monday. |
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LONDON — Number eight Nick Easter scored four tries as England produced an impressive forward display to destroy an under-strength Wales by a record 62-5 in the first of their three August World Cup warm-ups on Saturday. Though questions remain about the make-up and effectiveness of their backs, who displayed little cutting edge, the world champions’ awesome pack showed that they remain a match for anyone in the game. With the sun beating down on Twickenham, England scored nine tries, Jonny Wilkinson converting seven of them, to record their highest score and biggest winning margin against Wales. Easter, scrum-half Shaun Perry, flanker Joe Worsley and lock Steven Shaw all made impressive statements while center Andy Farrell finally showed glimpses of the talent that made him such a star in rugby league. |
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 SAN DIEGO — Maria Sharapova was feeling confident about her U.S. Open defence after beating Patty Schnyder to win the San Diego Classic on Sunday. Sharapova won the San Diego title 12 months ago, finding the rhythm which carried her to the last grand slam title of the year at Flushing Meadows. |
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BEIJING — China will breed pigs using hormone-free food for next year’s Olympic athletes to avoid false-positive doping tests, Beijing’s latest step to cool worldwide concern about the quality of Chinese food. The official pork supplier’s announcement came as the government promised a nationwide food quality crackdown to restore trust after a string of scandals. |
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LONDON — Manchester United’s victory over an injury-hit Chelsea in the Community Shield will give Alex Ferguson a lift and Jose Mourinho a reminder of some very unhappy memories. |
 BUDAPEST — As if they did not already have enough to worry about, Formula One leaders McLaren could face the real risk of Fernando Alonso walking out at the end of the season. With the double world champion seemingly no longer on speaking terms with 22-year-old British rookie Lewis Hamilton after a turbulent Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, the speculation was rife. |
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NAKHABINO, Russia — Sweden’s Per-Ulrik Johansson shot a final round five-under 67 to cruise to a six-stroke triumph at the rain-affected Russian Open on Sunday and clinch his first victory in a decade. |
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 The “Harry Potter” books have long outgrown the realm of children’s literature, and their language is far from simple; there are relatively few readers in Russia able to tackle the English-language original. For the seventh and last book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” most will have to wait until December, when Sergei Ilyin and Maya Lakhuti will have translated it for Rosmen publishing house, the holder of the rights to the books in Russia. |
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 What does a successful crime novel do? What does a successful mystery do? A provisional distinction between the two genres might be this: A crime novel focuses on the setting — the city and the neighborhoods, sure, but also the social networks — in which the crime was committed; it tends to be, as George Pelecanos, a master crime novelist but not really a mystery writer, said, a “whydunit” rather than a “whodunit. |
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