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The Foreign Ministry hinted Friday that the British Council’s regional offices might be allowed to reopen if Britain resumed cooperation with the Federal Security Service and expressed a willingness to ease visa rules for Russians. “This will create the circumstances for the resumption of talks” over the status of the British Council’s regional offices, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov said by telephone Friday. In the meantime, local residents are collecting signatures in an informal gesture of support for the council. The campaign was launched by a group of students that had used the center’s services and were frustrated by the news of the organization closing. |
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 SOFIA, Bulgaria — President Vladimir Putin on Friday won Bulgaria’s support for a multibillion-dollar pipeline aimed at further strengthening Moscow’s hold on Europe’s energy market. |
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MOSCOW — Rights group Amnesty International on Friday urged Russia to provide proper treatment for a jailed Yukos executive who has AIDS and says he could die if he is not moved to a specialized hospital. Russia has snubbed three requests from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to move Vasily Aleksanyan, 36, out of his Moscow jail. |
All photos from issue.
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A troubled German teen is spending nine months in remote Siberia as part of efforts to turn him away from violence, officials said. The 16-year-old had been diagnosed as “pathologically aggressive” for behaving violently in school and attacking his mother, said Stefan Becker, head of the youth and social affairs department in the central German town of Giessen. The teen agreed to take part in a program to send troubled youth to Siberia to reform in “a somewhat unusual measure, even for us,” Becker said. Youth services are experimenting with so-called “intensive educational experiences abroad” amid bad-tempered debate in Germany over how to tackle youth crime. |
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 A Russian book written by a computer in St. Petersburg is to hit the country’s bookstores at the end of January. The book, published by the city’s Astrel SPb publishing company, is the work of a computer program, created by a team of IT specialists and language experts. |
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MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin and his favored successor Dmitry Medvedev could take turns to run Russia for another quarter of a century, a senior Kremlin ally said in an interview published on Monday. Sergei Mironov, a Kremlin loyalist and the speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper house, said Putin could become president again after a Medvedev term, serve two terms himself and then hand over once more to Medvedev. |
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MOSCOW — Russian stocks fell for a fifth day on Monday as Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft declined after oil prices sank below $90 a barrel in New York for the first time since Dec. 10. The ruble-denominated Micex decreased 3.9 percent to 1,718.23 at 11:48 a.m. Monday in Moscow, 29 stocks retreated and one fell. The benchmark has lost 13 percent since its high on Dec. 12. The dollar-denominated RTS Index slid 3.9 percent to 2,075.91 Monday. Crude oil futures in New York dropped as a slump in Asian stock markets increased speculation about a global recession that would reduce energy demand. Asian stocks fell to a five-month low, and Hong Kong’s benchmark index had the biggest drop since the Sept. |
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 Chris Wilkinson, an English architect taking part in the competition for the reconstruction of Apraksin Dvor — a dilapidated architectural ensemble in the center of St. |
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Finnish hotel group Sokotel opened the city’s first five-star Spa-hotel earlier this month. Holiday Club St. Petersburg, which has 278 rooms, is located on Vasilievsky Island at 2-4 Birzhevoi Pereulok. Of the hotel’s infrastructure, only the Spanish restaurant Sevilla and the Bridges lobby-bar are currently available for hotel guests, while the spa center and other restaurants should start operating in April, Sokotel said last week in a statement. |
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MOSCOW — Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin will join a sovereign wealth funds discussion at the Davos forum accompanied by a little-known official while his deputy remains in jail, sources said Friday. |
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Meat Plant for Oblast ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Atria, a Finnish meat processing company, will open its new plant in Gorelovo, Leningrad Oblast, in September this year, Interfax reported Friday. The company is investing 70 million euros ($102.5 million) into the project. The plant will produce 90 tons of meat products a day. The Leningrad Oblast government is planning to sign an investment agreement with Atria, according to which the company will receive tax benefits during the pay-back period for the project. Alcohol Production Up ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — Production of alcohol in Russia increased by 10 percent last year, Interfax reported Friday. |
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 The largest Nordic travel fair, Matka, held at the Helsinki Fair Center from Jan. 17-20, hosted more than 1000 exhibitors this year from nearly 80 different countries. |
 SANGTUDA, Tajikistan — Tajikistan, its utilities paralyzed by the coldest winter in decades, on Sunday opened a new Russian-built power plant hailed by the authorities as a step toward solving an energy crisis. Millions of Tajiks were struggling to survive without heating and electricity in their homes as temperatures plunged to below minus 20 degrees Celsius. |
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MOSCOW — Kellogg announced Thursday that it had purchased United Bakers Group, the country’s biggest breakfast cereal maker, to take almost complete control of the local market. |
 MOSCOW — Oleg Mitvol, the state environmental inspector who led aggressive campaigns against foreign energy companies, abruptly resigned Friday to protest the possible appointment of a new head to his agency. But Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev refused to accept the resignation, and Mitvol remains in his position as deputy head of the Federal Service for the Inspection of Natural Resources Use. |
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The following outlines Gazprom’s tactics in East Europe. Bulgaria • Gazprom supplies all of the Balkan country’s natural gas and transports gas through its territory to Greece and Turkey. |
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BELGRADE — Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on Friday publicly backed a Russian offer of an energy pact that could see Serbia included in the South Stream pipeline in return for Gazprom getting a stake in Serb oil monopoly NIS. The plan, first discussed in December, has caused a rift inside Serbia’s fragile coalition. |
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 The old woman’s back was so hunched she couldn’t get her chin off her chest. Wrapped in layers of ratty sweaters, she stood meekly against a tile wall, one hand extended. Elderly people are everywhere in the metro tunnels beneath Moscow, begging for pocket change. |
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Some anniversaries go unmarked and are all the more significant for that. Maybe it was the excitement when President Vladimir Putin named First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, while Putin was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. |
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 BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia faces a showdown next month between a nationalist who leans towards Russia and a liberal favoring the West in a presidential election run-off. Both candidates oppose independence for the breakaway province of Kosovo, expected to be declared soon after the second round vote, with the backing of the West. |
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LONDON — The government has braced Monday for the start of a bruising battle to ratify a controversial new European treaty, dismissing demands for a referendum likely to reject the pact. |
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 MELBOURNE — A despondent Lleyton Hewitt admitted that he had been beaten by the better man after his Australian Open dreams were ended by third seed Novak Djokovic on Monday. Home favourite Hewitt, runner-up in 2005, was beaten 7-5 6-3 6-3 by the Serbian, who overcame an early bout of nerves to run out a convincing winner. |
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NEW YORK — The New England Patriots will face one more challenge in their bid for a perfect season: a Super Bowl meeting with the surprising New York Giants. |
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ACCRA, Ghana — Sulley Muntari struck a wonder goal in the final minute to give hosts Ghana a 2-1 win over Guinea in the opening match of the African Nations Cup on Sunday. Ghana hit the woodwork three times, took the lead 10 minutes into the second half but in then end had to rely on a 25-metre bullet from Muntari to grab all three points at the Ohene Djan stadium. |
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BEIJING — Beijing organizers on Monday denied a report that 10 workers had died during the construction of the showpiece stadium for the 2008 Olympics, which start in 200 days. |
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Issues Archive