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MOSCOW — The British Council is embroiled in fresh dispute with the authorities, this time over taxes, less than six months after it was forced into closing its offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. The organization, which functions as the British government’s cultural arm, said Wednesday that the disagreement hinges on a tax bill it received in May that it has only partially paid. |
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MOSCOW — Agreement can be reached by the end of this year on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), but rows over the trade in meat and timber need to be resolved, the European Union’s trade chief said. |
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New laws set to come into force next month requiring travel companies to take out state insurance and assume financial liability for the quality of their services look set to spark a wave of consolidation in Russia’s underdeveloped travel and tourism industry. Last week Finland’s OY Aurinkomatkat-Suntours LTD Ab opened its first Russian office in St. Petersburg while Aurinkomatkat’s local partner, Calypso — World of Travels, St. Petersburg’s largest supplier of individual and cruise tourism services, sold a stake to the Finnish company. This will enable Calypso to promote the Finnish brand and five packages of tours to Greece, Italy and Turkey on the local market. |
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 Activists defending Skver Podvodnikov (the Submariners’ Garden) in the north of St. Petersburg were attacked and beaten on Wednesday by guards hired by a construction company that is erecting four tall buildings on the land, used by residents as a public park, the garden’s defenders said. |
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MOSCOW — BP’s billionaire partners said the company was planning to fire Russian executives at TNK-BP as a battle for control of the 50-50 oil venture escalates. “We have received very strong signals that BP and [TNK-BP CEO] Bob Dudley may take the unilateral action to terminate at least several members of senior management that were appointed by AAR,” said Stan Polovets, CEO of AAR, a consortium of three companies controlled by Mikhail Fridman, TNK-BP executive director German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik. |
All photos from issue.
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 FC St. Petersburg Zenit striker and Russian international Andrei Arshavin is the nation’s favorite soccer player, an opinion poll has revealed. Twelve percent of those questioned said Arshavin was the best Russian footballer according to a survey conducted by state-run polling organization VTsIOM before the beginning of the Euro 2008 soccer championship taking place in Austria and Switzerland, Interfax reported. |
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MOSCOW — Moskovsky Korrespondent, the newspaper that closed after writing that former President Vladimir Putin would marry a former Olympic gymnast, intends to resume publication in two months. |
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A 12-year-old girl was seriously injured on a fairground attraction at the Divo Ostrov amusement park in St. Petersburg on Monday. The girl was injured on the Air Gymnasts attraction, which is kind of a trampoline, RIA Novosti reported. The girl was hospitalized with an open fracture of the skull, injury to the back of her head and a fracture of the spine, Interfax reported. |
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 President Dmitry Medvedev has made a number of foreign policy statements since taking office. His speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has drawn the most attention, although it was lacking something new in content. But his June 5 speech in Berlin was remarkable, especially in the context of the rejection a week later of the Treaty of Lisbon, a document that represented a watered-down version of the failed European Constitution. |
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The Federal Drug Control Service is purging its staff. The first to go was General Viktor Rykov, head of the agency’s internal affairs. Rykov is a friend and confidante of General Alexander Bulbov, a former senior officer with the drug control agency who was arrested in October on suspicion of wiretapping top-ranking siloviki. |
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 His first violin may have been nothing more than a token Christmas gift from his father but today Greece’s Leonidas Kavakos is one of the world’s most distinguished and versatile virtuoso violinists with a packed concert diary. A regular at renowned international festivals, including the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms and the Ravenna Festival, Kavakos comes to town this week to perform at Valery Gergiev’s Stars of the White Nights Festival. |
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While Roger Waters found himself in a tricky situation by being financed by capitalists and politicians who he officially despises at the Economic Forum earlier this month, Yury Shevchuk, the frontman of the local band DDT, used the gathering to make some disobedient statements. |
 The Go! Team is where noisy guitar rock music and funky, early hip-hop style merge into a phenomenal live show built around a black female rapper. The multicultural six-piece indie pop band, whose members are based in Brighton and London in the U.K., bring their unique blend of music to St. Petersburg on Saturday. |
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 INNSBRUCK — The return of playmaker Andrei Arshavin on Wednesday transformed Russia from a pedestrian and predictable Euro 2008 team into a slick-passing unit able to overwhelm Sweden with two superb goals. Few believed coach Guus Hiddink when he said he might not start with his deep-lying attacker due to a lack of match fitness after the inspirational Arshavin was forced to sit out the first two Group D games through suspension. |
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LOS ANGELES — Tiger Woods will have reconstructive surgery on his left knee that will sideline him for the rest of the 2008 season, the American world number one said on Wednesday. |
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BASEL — UEFA general secretary David Taylor praised the players and coaches for their sporting attitude in Euro 2008 on Thursday despite the fiercely competitive nature of their group phase matches. Only three players have been red carded in the opening 24 matches, although German coach Joachim Loew and his Austrian counterpart Josef Hickersberger were both sent to the stands for their behaviour when their sides met in Vienna on Monday. |
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LONDON — Former Wimbledon great Bjorn Borg believes world number one Roger Federer is only third favorite to win the grasscourt grand slam this year. Federer is aiming for a sixth consecutive Wimbledon title but Borg, champion five times in a row from 1976-1980, thinks the Swiss will have his work cut out. |
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