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MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin has named Mikhail Fradkov as head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, in a surprise appointment that, observers said, indicates that the bland former prime minister had been a KGB operative. Fradkov will replace Sergei Lebedev, who was named executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States on Friday. “As far as the director of foreign intelligence is concerned, this person is well known to you. This is Mikhail Fradkov,” Putin told reporters Saturday in Dushanbe, where he was attending a CIS summit. Fradkov, widely seen as an “outsider” and obedient technocrat when appointed prime minister by Putin in 2004, stepped down last month in a cabinet shake-up. |
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 MOSCOW — Investigators know who pulled the trigger but still have not determined who ordered the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the chief investigator said in an interview published Monday. |
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MOSCOW — Anyone hoping to get a ticket for the crucial Oct. 17 soccer match between Russia and England would have had to get up very early Monday morning — with the exception, of course, of top United Russia officials. More than a thousand people had already put their names on the list for tickets days before the sales office opened Monday, said Anzhela Biryukova, the spokeswoman for the match at Luzhniki stadium, and thousands are expected to wait in line for hours for the last 10,000 tickets on sale. |
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In an effort to improve what she called the “poor verbal performance” of Russian government officials, the rector of St. Petersburg State University and head of the Russian Language Teachers’ Association has called for Russian language exams in the Kremlin and the Duma. |
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As plans put forward by City Hall to re-settle 80 percent of the residents of St. Petersburg’s notorious communal apartments by 2016 are rubberstamped by the city's Legislative Assembly, both real estate experts and people who live in communal aprtments have expressed scepticism that such targets can be reached. According to the plan, by 2011 at least 56,000 St. Petersburg families are to have been moved from communal apartments to new housing. At least 75.3 billion rubles ($3 billion) will be allocated to the purpose from the city budget, Fontanka.ru said. But “the most important factor for re-settling communal apartments is not the financial factors but human ones,” Alexander Romanenko, president of the Russian Real Estate Guild, who also heads Advecs Real Estate Corporation, said. |
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 DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Unhappiness over Russia’s continued domination of former Soviet republics soured a summit of their leaders, with Kazakhstan announcing plans to form an economic grouping without Moscow and Tbilisi refusing to sign an amended CIS treaty. |
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WASHINGTON — The secretaries of state and defense and a squadron of other U.S. officials head to Moscow this week for a series of top-level meetings. They will discuss missile defense, a conventional forces treaty and the next step in nuclear arms cuts. |
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KIEV — It curls around her head like a golden crown, a rococo flourish that sets her far apart from the jowly men she has challenged. Out of power for two years, Ukrainian firebrand Yulia Tymoshenko has plotted a comeback that culminated in a strong showing in parliamentary elections last week. |
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 It was a stump speech in what was very much a local election. But when Grigory Yavlinsky took the stage in the small Moscow region town of Pushchino, he wanted to talk big ideas. “Our program is built on idealism,” Yavlinsky told the crowd of 200 voters before launching into an hour-long analysis of how misguided economic reforms in the 1990s had produced the systemic corruption Russia has today. |
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MOSCOW — Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin received sweeping power over the national economy and finances, including the budget, foreign debt, state-run monopolies and customs rules in the new Cabinet, according to a government decree published Friday. |
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A new congress center to be constructed by 2011 near the presidential residence of Konstantinovsky Palace in Strelna is to make this St. Petersburg suburb “Russia’s European facade. |
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Shipyard Profits Rise ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) – Severnaya Verf shipyard increased its net profit by 84 percent last year up to $12.89 million, according to International Financial Reporting Standards, Interfax reported Friday. Revenue accounted for $311. |
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MOSCOW — Jump in, the water’s fine! This is the message that Frank Schauff, the newly appointed head of The Association of European Businesses in the Russian Federation, wants to send potential investors. |
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MOSCOW — Russia will “take measures” to curb rising food costs after the inflation rate accelerated more than forecast, RIA Novosti reported, citing Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina. The ministry submitted proposals to increase export taxes on wheat and barley and is “looking into” tariffs on dairy products, the state-run news service cited Nabiullina as saying at a cabinet meeting in Moscow on Monday. |
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LONDON — A previously unrecorded egg by jeweler Peter Carl Faberge containing a clock and animated cockerel goes on sale next month with a record price tag of up to $18. |
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MOSCOW — The government may appoint former Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref as the new president of state-controlled Sberbank, the country’s largest bank, government sources said Friday. The sources confirmed reports in Vedomosti and Kommersant that the current president of Sberbank, Andrei Kazmin, was expected to leave after 11 years at the helm and that Gref was the main contender to replace him. |
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WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund on Friday said it expected robust economic growth in Russia over the near term, bolstered by high oil prices, but cautioned that inflationary pressures were building. |
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In the first half of this year, 14 new business centers opened in St. Petersburg, adding over 100,000 square meters to the gross office area offered for rent, according to estimations by analysts at Becar Commercial Property SPb. The company forecasted that over 40 new business centers could open in the city by the end of 2007. |
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 One could have hoped that Anna Politkovskaya’s brutal murder and the international condemnation that followed would have set Russia’s besieged press environment on a different course. With hindsight, however, her death represented a harbinger of more repression to come. |
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Russia has been flexing its muscles lately, and the adjective “resurgent” is now nearly always attached to its name. President Vladimir Putin has also been pulling off one political surprise after another. |
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Ra-Ra-Rasputin! Russia’s greatest love machine!” These are not exactly the kind of lyrics you might expect the Georgian government to consider appropriate as part of its struggle to win back control of the tiny pro-Russian separatist region of South Ossetia. |
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Given the tension, mutual suspicion and general bad odor between Russia and the United States over recent years, it’s good to see the stars above realigning to make effective cooperation possible again. |
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 LONDON — Interpol on Monday launched an unprecedented worldwide public appeal to track down a man shown sexually abusing children in images posted on the Internet. The man appears in around 200 photographs featuring abuse of 12 young boys, which investigators believe were taken in Vietnam and Cambodia, possibly in 2002 and 2003. The pictures had been digitally altered to disguise the man’s face with a swirly pattern, but computer specialists at Germany’s federal police agency, the BKA, worked with Interpol’s human trafficking team to produce identifiable images. |
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 LONDON — After intense speculation, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Sunday that he would not go ahead with a general election, a decision apparently prompted by the unexpected success of the opposition Conservative Party’s annual conference last week. |
 VALLEGRANDE, Bolivia — The bearded image of guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara has become a pop icon splashed on mugs, T-shirts and even bikinis 40 years after his death, and this Bolivian town is out to cash in on the marketing frenzy. In central Bolivia, where Guevara battled the army before he was captured and killed, tour operators offer a chance to retrace his final steps on the “Che Trail. |
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PARIS — British jurors probing Princess Diana’s death are to see for themselves in Paris where she died in a high-speed car crash with her lover Dodi al-Fayed. |
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 PARIS — Argentina hung on in the face of determined Scotland pressure to win their quarterfinal 19-13 on Sunday and reach the last four in the World Cup for the first time. In by far the least attractive match of the quarterfinals weekend, the tiring Pumas defended their tryline tooth and nail against a last-ditch Scottish onslaught to earn a semi-final against South Africa. |
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MOSCOW — Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli beat Ukraine’s Alona Bondarenko 6-2 7-5 in the first round of the Kremlin Cup on Monday. The fifth-seeded Frenchwoman, making her debut in Moscow, won the opening set in 27 minutes but was tested in the second by the up-and-coming Bondarenko. |
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CARDIFF — France players barely had time to celebrate their extraordinary 20-18 win over favorite New Zealand before coach Bernard Laporte asked them to turn their minds to Saturday’s World Cup semi-final against England. “The players defeated New Zealand who are the best team in the world with a lot of talent, generosity and solidarity and I’m proud of what they did,” Laporte told a news conference in Cardiff on Sunday. |
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LONDON (AFP) — England manager Steve McClaren has called for his players to dish up a repeat dose of last month’s back to back wins in next week’s Euro 2008 qualifiers against Russia and Estonia. |
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France Strikes Gold ST. PETERSBURG (AP) — France won its third straight men’s team epee title and Poland took gold in the women’s team foil at the World Fencing Championships on Sunday. In the men’s final, Eric Boisse, Fabrice Jeannet, Jerome Jeannet and Ulrich Robeiri defeated Italy 45-38. Hungary settled for the bronze medal with a 45-40 victory over Spain. In the women’s team foil, Sylwia Gruchala, Katarzyna Kryczalo, Magda Mroczkiewicz and Malgorzata Wojtkowiak beat Russia on a 26-25 sudden-death victory. Japan took the bronze medal, beating Hungary 33-31. Ferrer On Top TOKYO (AP) — David Ferrer overpowered Richard Gasquet 6-1, 6-2 Sunday to win the Japan Open for his third title of the year. |
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 SHANGHAI — Fernando Alonso has history on his side, even if the Spaniard suspects McLaren team bosses are against him in his battle to win a third Formula One championship in a row. |
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LONDON — Arsenal beat Sunderland 3-2 on Sunday, moving back to the top of the Premier League after Robin van Persie secured victory with a well worked winner 10 minutes from time. It was Arsenal’s 10th successive win in all competitions but they made hard work of it after racing into a 2-0 lead in the opening 14 minutes before allowing Sunderland to pull level early in the second half. |
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• BDO Unicon North-West • Enterprise Ireland/Embassy of Ireland • Consulate General of Japan • IBM • Firm KOMFORT • Maslennikov & Partners • Novotel St. Petersburg Centre BDO Unicon North-West is an active member of the global network of audit companies BDO International, the top ranked national Russian company. |
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SPIBA HR COMMITTEE HOLDS ROUND TABLE ON LABOUR FORCE IMPORT FROM REGIONS Lack of personnel is a hot issue for companies today. On September 19, 2007, SPIBA HR Committee organized the round table on labour force import from regions to indicate related problems and outline possible solutions, which proved to be informative and productive. |
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What happened since July 2007 11.07.07 Seminar: Style Rules for Classic Men’s Wear Guest speaker: Anastasia Glot, Expert, Machiavelli Luxury Group 17.07.07 Open Meeting of the SPIBA Marketing Committee – Site Visit to the Baltika brewery 19.09.07 Round Table: Labour Force Import from Regions: Problems and Solutions Organised by the SPIBA HR Committee 21. |
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By the end of October ANCOR recruitment holding will have released an All-Russian Salary Survey for the second half of the year 2007. It’s the only project of such a large scale. |
Temp: -2°C moderate or heavy snow showers
Issues Archive