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City Hall is pressuring the organizers of the Second March for the Preservation of the Historical Center of St. Petersburg — the liberal opposition party Yabloko and pressure groups Living City and Okhtinskaya Duga — to hold a meeting instead of a demonstration. The event had been scheduled to start at midday on Saturday. Leonid Bogdanov, head of City Hall’s Committee on Legal Issues and Security, has turned down the preservationists’ request to hold a short march from Sportivnaya metro station to Andrei Sakharov Square. Bogdanov said the march would have disturbed the shooting of a historical TV series, “Ligovka,” and an outdoor theatrical festival. |
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SIEGE REMEMBERED
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Siege veterans dance with fellow participants from social organizations dressed in World War II period costumes in an event commemorating the 67th anniversary of the start of the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi forces, which ran from 1941 to 1944. |
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MOSCOW — European Union monitors will deploy to regions surrounding South Ossetia and Abkhazia by next month and Russian troops will pull out after that, President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday. After talks with visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev said that 200 EU monitors will be deployed to South Ossetia no later than Oct. 1. International talks on the conflict in Georgia would be held beginning Oct.
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MOSCOW — The MICEX Index on Friday fell to its lowest level since June 2006, deepening Russian markets’ biggest slump since the 1998 financial crisis. Friday’s fall — by as much as 9 percent in midafternoon trading — came after the Central Bank confirmed that it had stepped in to prop up the ruble amid a strengthening dollar and falling oil prices. |
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Gay Taxi Service? Taxis for gay people may be set to appear on the streets of St. Petersburg, Interfax reported Monday. Although there are no concrete plans as yet, a representative of a Petersburg taxi firm told Interfax that they believe there is a market for this service. |
All photos from issue.
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ALGIERS, Algeria — Now is not the right time for the United States to move forward on a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday. Her comment increased speculation that U.S. President George W. Bush is planning to punish Moscow for invading Georgia by canceling the agreement. Such a move is being planned, according to senior Bush administration officials, but is not yet final. “The time isn’t right for the Russia agreement,” Rice told reporters while flying from Tunisia to Algeria during a visit to North Africa. “We’ll be making an announcement about that later. |
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HEAVY METAL
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A priest on St. Isaac’s Square rings some of the 17 bells of Moscow’s St. Daniil Monastery that were returned from the U.S. last week. The bells had been sold off by the Bolsheviks in the 1930s. |
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MOSCOW — Need to ensnare a senior executive of a rival company in a criminal investigation? Be prepared to fork out $30,000 to an official. Tack on another $35,000 if you want a court to rule in your favor. These are just some of the estimated fees that so-called “raiders” pay corrupt officials to help them illegally seize businesses, according to a new report on how to battle such seizures.
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 MOSCOW — Mobile TeleSystems confirmed on Friday that it was interested in buying a stake in mobile phone retailer Yevroset, which last week had its office raided and two of its employees detained over smuggling and kidnapping allegations. The sale of a stake in the country’s largest handset outlet to its biggest cell phone operator could signal the beginning of a trend toward the U. |
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Severo-Zapadny Telekom (Northwest Telecommunications) has updated its Internet services, increasing connection speeds and reducing unlimited tariff prices by 40 percent — a move regarded by experts as an effective marketing tool which is expected to draw around 120,000 new customers by the end of this year. |
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Raspadskaya Faces Fine MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Russia will fine Raspadskaya, the country’s second-largest producer of coking coal, for “abusing its dominant position in the market,” the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service said. The penalty can’t exceed two percent of annual revenue, the watchdog said on its web site, in a statement dated Friday. Raspadskaya cooperated with the investigation and agreed to lower prices, which “will be taken into account,” the regulator said. The service will probably levy the minimum fine of one percent of coking coal sales for 2007, Vedomosti reported, citing an unidentified service official. The fine probably won’t exceed $8 million and the price cuts will cost the company about $60 million, the newspaper said Monday, citing UniCredit SpA analyst Marat Gabitov. |
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 MOSCOW — Government officials said Friday that the country would create a state-controlled airline holding company as big as Aeroflot to rescue the cash-strapped AiRUnion airline alliance. |
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MOSCOW — Europe has nothing to fear from dependence on Russian gas even though at least a third of its gas will come from Russia by 2015, Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev told Reuters on Monday. Leaders in the European Union have long been worried by growing dependence on Russian gas supplied by Gazprom but the EU has come up with few solutions. “In spite of the simple fact that Europe needs additional gas, some political circles are trying to play the card of the dependence of Europe on Russian gas as ...a threat to Western Europe, which is absolutely absurd, because we are mutually dependent,” Medvedev told the Reuters Russia Investment Summit. |
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 MOSCOW — The ruble recovered on Friday from a historic trough after the Central Bank said it would not allow the currency’s trading band to widen, adding further weight to its market interventions. |
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 Aug. 26 was a day of historic importance for our people. On this day, all South Ossetians sat glued to their television sets and listened as President Dmitry Medvedev announced that he had signed a decree recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. |
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Last month’s blitzkrieg against Georgia unleashed a stunning wave of anti-Americanism in Russia. Russians obviously like to think that their country not only roughed up a small, poor neighbor but, more important, dealt a blow to U. |
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 ISLAMABAD — With Pakistan’s economy tanking and a Taliban insurgency raging, new president Asif Ali Zardari must decide if the time is right to risk more instability by entering a confrontation with old rival Nawaz Sharif. A new power struggle is about the last thing the West would want in a nuclear-armed Muslim state whose backing is central to defeating al-Qaeda and helping NATO stabilize Afghanistan. |
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HAVANA — Hurricane Ike weakened into a Category 2 storm on Monday after roaring ashore in northeastern Cuba, but forecasters say it could regain intensity as it spins toward the U. |
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — Republican nominee John McCain said in an interview aired on Sunday he would bring Democrats into his Cabinet and administration as part of his attempt to change the political atmosphere in Washington. “I don’t know how many, but I can tell you, with all due respect to previous administrations, it is not going to be a single, ‘Well, we have a Democrat now,”’ McCain said on CBS’ “Face the Nation. |
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JERUSALEM — Police recommendations that criminal charges be filed against Ehud Olmert dealt yet another harsh blow to the Israeli premier whose government has been battered by the corruption allegations. |
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SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — Formula One faced familiar accusations of shooting itself in the foot on Monday after McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was stripped of a sensational Belgian Grand Prix win. “This is the worst judgement in the history of F1,” fulminated former champion and television commentator Niki Lauda after race stewards handed McLaren’s championship leader a retrospective 25-second penalty that dropped him to third place. |
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Was Jumper Drunk? LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Track and field’s ruling body wants Ivan Ukhov to explain his conduct at the Athletissima meet in which rival high jumpers said the Russian had been drinking vodka and Red Bull during the competition. |
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BEIJING — Double amputee Oscar Pistorius has put the disappointment of not qualifying for the Beijing Olympics behind him and is confident of snaring three gold medals in the athletics at the Paralympics. The 21-year-old South African, dubbed the ‘Blade Runner’ because of the prosthetic legs that enable him to sprint, won a legal battle in May for the right to participate in the Olympics, only to then fail to meet the qualifying time. |
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