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 KAVKAZ PORT, Russia — Russian rescue helicopters and ships searched for five missing seamen on Monday after a storm in the northern mouth of the Black Sea, while oil spilt from a sunken tanker coated birds in a black sludge. Rescue officials said three people died in the storm that struck the narrow Kerch Strait between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea on Sunday, sinking a small oil tanker and at least four freighters and leaving other ships stranded on the shoreline. |
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 Since 1984, when FC Zenit Leningrad won its only league title in the old Soviet Union, fans have chanted the mantra “Zenit — Champion!” as an article of faith in the beloved St. |
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As President Vladimir Putin urged the country’s law enforcement agencies to boost their efforts in fighting graft ahead of National Police Day on Sunday, investigators admit they are at a loss over the task and critics call for an overhaul of the system. “The Russian people expect new achievements from the police in combating economic crimes and corruption,” Putin said in televised remarks on Saturday. |
All photos from issue.
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Finland is expecting 90,000 Russian tourists for the upcoming New Year holiday, Finnish tourism experts said. St. Petersburg tourism operators have confirmed that almost all tours to Finland beginning Dec. 27 through Jan. 10 are sold out. Russians were top among foreign tourists who visited Finland in 2007, said Sari Lammesalo, director of Finland’s Tourism Development Center, said. The flow of tourists from Moscow grew by 32 percent and visitors from St. Petersburg were up by 15 percent, Lammesalo said. She said Russian tourism to Finland grows year-on-year. Lammesalo said this year their center placed street advertisements in a number of Russian cities, including Moscow, St. |
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FIGHT CLUB
Thomas Peter / Reuters
Men fight during an organized brawl in Tsaritsino Park in Moscow on Sunday. Some 200 martial arts enthusiasts gathered in the historic park to take part in the traditional brawls. |
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MOSCOW — With less than a month to go before State Duma elections, United Russia’s popularity appears to be withering as higher food prices sink in and the novelty of President Vladimir Putin’s decision to lead the party in the vote wears off. A Kremlin-ordered opinion poll released Friday indicated that support for the party has dropped 6 percentage points over the past two weeks, said the pollster, state-run VTsIOM.
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MOSCOW — Europe’s main democracy watchdog said on Monday its observers cannot begin work monitoring Russia’s Dec. 2 parliamentary election because Moscow has not issued them entry visas. Russia has already come under criticism from Western governments for slashing the number of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) it will allow to monitor the vote. |
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MOSCOW — A former British soldier identified in media reports as a spy for Russia has been arrested under Britain’s Official Secrets Act and charged with possessing explosives, police said Saturday. |
 A priest’s wife has opened the first store to sell the clothes for Russian Orthodox women in St. Petersburg. The store, called Twelve Holidays after the number of main Orthodox celebrations such as Easter or Christmas, has become the part of OOO Aksamit, a bigger store selling various church accessories. |
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Drugs Kill 80,000 MOSCOW (Reuters) Drug addiction kills 80,000 Russians each year, a senior Federal Drug Control Service official said Friday. About 70,000 Russians die annually from diseases linked to drug addiction, and another 10,000 are killed by overdoses, said Alexander Yanevsky, head of the agency’s department overseeing prevention of drug use, RIA-Novosti reported. |
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 Valentina Matviyenko has been called an iron lady, an undemocratic ruler and the woman behind a business boom in the northern capital. But on the streets of St. Petersburg, she is more commonly known as Auntie Valya. The nickname refers to a much-loved presenter on “Spokoinoi Nochi, Malyshi,” or “Good Night, Kids,” a television program that has sent children off to bed since 1964. |
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 MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Friday welcomed growing trade ties with Switzerland during talks in the Kremlin with his Swiss counterpart, which included a request by Switzerland to ease visa regulations. President Micheline Calmy-Rey came to Moscow a day after a Swiss court ordered the early release from prison of Viktor Kaloyev, a former architect jailed for killing an air traffic controller he blamed for the death of his family in a 2001 plane collision. |
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A wave of strikes is threatening to hit St. Petersburg as trades unions coordinate industrial action at a number of the region’s enterprises, including the railway, the mail, a brewery and a car manufacturer, ahead of elections to the State Duma on Dec. |
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MOSCOW — The government has delayed legislation that would define the country’s strategic economic sectors and set the rules for foreign investment there until next year, Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said Thursday. Among reasons for the delay are new proposals from the security services to designate more industries as strategic, made since the Cabinet shake-up in September. |
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MOSCOW — Gazprom has reached a preliminary deal on raising the price of gas supplies to Ukraine by $30 per 1,000 cubic meters, deputy chairman Alexander Medvedev said Friday in a television interview. |
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LSR Group, one of the leading developers and producers of construction materials in St. Petersburg, completed an IPO Friday, raising about $772 million. LSR Group floated about 10.64 million shares - 12.5 percent of the authorized capital stock. The shares of LSR Group were listed on Russian Trading System (RTS) and Moscow Interbank Stock Exchange, with GDRs (global depositary receipts) being listed on the London Stock Exchange. |
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Power Machines ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Municipal authorities of Juvaskula city (Finland) ordered power equipment worth 30 million euros ($43 million) from Power Machines, the company said Monday in a statement. |
 It was 1981, and 18-year-old Garry Kasparov’s attacking style had, for the second time that year, failed to yield a win against former world chess champion and fellow Soviet grandmaster Tigran Petrosian, who was famous for his defensive play. It was, in fact, Petrosian’s elusive style (“I started to feel like a bull chasing a toreador around the ring. |
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NEW YORK, United States — The slipping U.S. economy and plunging bourses appeared to infect the market for multi-million dollar paintings as major works, including a Van Gogh, went unsold at auctions here this week. |
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CHICAGO — Despite a worsening economy and debts on their balance sheets, Detroit’s Big Three automakers seem to be turning the corner on a financial crisis so deep that bankruptcy once seemed inevitable, analysts say. But it has been a painful process. General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC have laid off nearly 100,000 workers, shuttered dozens of plants and lost more than 75 billion dollars since 2005. |
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 Until recently, the world of finance appeared to move toward transparent, publicly traded private corporations, but recently an opposite trend has become apparent. Nontransparent forms of investment, such as hedge funds, private equity funds and sovereign wealth funds, are surging. |
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People facing alarming birthdays often say things like, “Forty is just a number.” You could say the same about “$100 oil.” But such benchmarks concentrate minds. |
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 Not long ago, when he was in Portugal at the EU-Russia summit, President Vladimir Putin announced that he planned to set up an institute in the EU that would monitor human rights in Europe. Putin’s aide on EU affairs, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, reported to journalists that the new organization would focus on monitoring Europe’s track record on freedom of the press, as well as the rights of ethnic minorities and immigrants. |
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Maybe it’s just sheer orneriness, but lately I’ve started feeling a little hopeful about Russia again. Russia continues to cooperate with the United States on securing missile sites to prevent the theft of nuclear material by terrorists. |
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Everyone in Tbilisi has their own version of what happened on Nov. 7, the day when riot police put down the largest anti-government demonstrations since the Rose Revolution. The following day, media restrictions were in force under the state of emergency imposed by President Mikheil Saakashvili. |
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Leaders have been exaggerating their societies’ perils and their own virtues since the first cave politician ran for tribal rock gatherer on a Strategic Mammoth Defense platform. |
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BAGHDAD — U.S. forces on Monday rebuffed demands from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for three former high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s government and military to be handed over so they could be hanged. The U.S. military said it would continue to keep the men in its custody until the Iraqi government resolved an internal dispute over the legal and procedural requirements for carrying out the death sentences. |
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LONDON — Conservative Party leader David Cameron has told how supermodel Kate Moss asked for his phone number after mistaking him for a plumber. Cameron said he was introduced to Moss at a charity dinner after floods hit Britain this year. |
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TBILISI — Georgia’s opposition coalition on Monday named a businessman to challenge President Mikhail Saakashvili in a snap election on Jan. 5, but splits in the opposition camp weakened its chances of victory. The coalition, which forced Saakashvili to call the election after a series of protests in the capital, said it would put forward 43-year-old wine producer Levan Gachechiladze as its candidate. |
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LONDON — Prince Harry and his Zimbabwean girlfriend Chelsy Davy have split up, Sunday newspapers reported. The News of the World and the Mail on Sunday said Davy, 22, had told friends she and the prince were having a trial separation. |
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LAHORE — Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto will not be allowed to hold a motorcade procession planned for Tuesday from the city of Lahore to protest against emergency rule, a government official said. Two-time prime minister Bhutto had earlier on Monday urged Pakistanis of all shades to join the motorcade protest against President Pervez Musharraf's emergency rule and vowed it would go ahead even if police tried to block her. As darkness fell, hundreds of extra police moved in around the Lahore home of a party official where Bhutto was staying, setting up more barricades across streets, saying they were for her security. But party officials and guests were not stopped from coming and going into the house. |
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 LONDON — A huge blaze at a warehouse sent black smoke pouring over east London on Monday but there were no reports of casualties and police ruled out a terrorist attack. |
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BEIJING — China sought on Monday to allay fears about food safety ahead of the Summer Olympics with tours of model meat processing plants and said no “Olympic pork” was being prepared for the Games. Officials denied that levels of hormones or antibiotics in meat provided during the 2008 Games would be adjusted to avoid false-doping tests and said all food destined for the Olympics was the same as that for the general population. |
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TOKYO — Japanese slugger Kosuke Fukudome announced his free agency Monday, becoming the latest Japanese player to fuel speculation of a move to the U.S. |
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LONDON — Formula One runner-up Lewis Hamilton has recognized that tax considerations played a part in his recent decision to move from Britain to Switzerland. The 22-year-old McLaren driver was criticized after he announced last month that he was leaving Britain to protect his privacy. |
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MILAN — Italy thought it was on the way to combating soccer violence until Sunday’s riots were sparked by the killing of a Lazio fan by a police officer. |
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MOSCOW — Lokomotiv Moscow sacked coach Anatoly Byshovets on Monday one day after ending the most disappointing season in their recent history. Despite having one of the biggest budgets in Russian soccer, the railway side finished in seventh place, their worst showing since 1992 when the Russian championship was founded after the break-up of the Soviet Union. |
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Issues Archive