|
|
|
|
Preliminary hearings in the case against local businessman Vladimir Barsukov (a.k.a. Kumarin), reportedly one of the former leaders of the Tambov criminal group, that were due to start in the Kuibyshevsky District Court on Thursday have been postponed until Wednesday, Nov. 26. Barsukov’s lawyer Sergei Afanasiev told reporters the hearings were rescheduled after the Investigative Board of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office refused to authorize Barsukov’s transfer to St. Petersburg from Moscow’s Lefortovo prison, where he is being held. “It is impossible to hold the hearings without the defendant being present,” Afanasiev said, adding that he has not yet received any explanation for the refusal to organize Barsukov’s transfer to the trial this week. |
|
EXTERIOR DECOR
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A workman adds festive decorations to a New Year tree on Ploshchad Alexandra Nevskogo. This week saw the first snowfall of the season and more is predicted for the weekend. |
|
MOSCOW — Reversing his Monday decision, the judge ordered the court closed to the media and the public Wednesday in the trial of three men accused of killing journalist Anna Politkovskaya, citing concerns for the safety of the jury. The decision was criticized severely by lawyers for the defense, Politkovskaya’s family and rights groups, who hoped that the trial would uncover further information about the killing.
|
|
A woman who killed her husband by shutting him inside a folding couch has been given a one-year suspended sentence, prosecutors said Monday. In response to an insulting comment from her husband in July, Vera Lukyanova, 55, closed the folding couch her spouse was lying on, St. |
|
BRUSSELS — NATO, the EU and others should launch land operations against bases of Somali pirates in coordination with Russia, the Russian ambassador to NATO said Wednesday. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Almost daily, street cleaners paint over racist graffiti on apartment buildings on Ulitsa Kubinka, where a teenage girl was raped and strangled last month purportedly by an Uzbek immigrant. The horrifying attack in western Moscow has galvanized ultranationalists, and most of the graffiti is directed at the many migrant workers from former Soviet republics hired by the city to keep the streets tidy. “Every night, new racist slogans appear on the walls of buildings,” said Olga Labuticheva, a building maintenance official in Moscow’s Mozhaisky district, where 15-year-old Anna Beshnova was murdered on Oct. 1. |
|
R.I.P.
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
A portrait of the assassinated politician and State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova placed by her grave in the Nikolsky Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Thursday marked the 10th anniversary of her murder. |
|
MOSCOW — European Union officials called last week’s Nice summit between Russia and the European Union constructive and said talks would resume to draw up a “road map” to help Russia join the World Trade Organization. President Dmitry Medvedev met President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which currently holds the EU presidency, and other EU officials for talks in the south of France on Friday.
|
|
|
|
 MOSCOW — Overdue wages soared 33 percent in October, reaching more than 4 billion rubles ($146 million), as the cash-strapped manufacturing, transportation, construction and agriculture sectors have begun delaying payments, the State Statistics Service said Wednesday. |
|
MOSCOW — Since early September, Russia’s MICEX exchange has experienced multiple one-day percentage drops in the double digits and lost almost 60 percent of its value. |
|
MOSCOW — Russian consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in the week to Monday, at the same pace as in the preceding period, which took inflation for the year to date to 12 percent, the State Statistics Service said Wednesday. The global financial crisis has prompted the government to switch focus from controlling inflation to supporting the economy and financial markets. |
|
MOSCOW — The government offered the State Duma a breakdown Wednesday of how it is coping with the financial crisis, a report that was welcomed by investors even though not much of the news was positive. |
|
|
|
 Television shows in Russia and Ukraine are worlds apart when it comes to covering the financial crisis. Watching Russian television over the past month, it might be easy to miss that the country is mired in the same twin crises gripping the world — the ongoing credit crunch and the emerging downturn in the real economy. |
|
We can say three things with certainty regarding reforms to international financial structures: They are necessary, inevitable and doomed to fail. The Group of 20 summit held in Washington was destined to fail from the start because the participants held such widely divergent interpretations of the problem. |
|
|
|
 Turn on the radio in Russia, and the songs of Yoav, the Israeli-born, South African-raised singer/guitarist with a unique playing style, are in heavy rotation. Yoav got his first taste of success in Denmark earlier this year when a radio DJ picked up his song “Club Thing” from his MySpace page. |
|
Freshly renovated and with a new program of live music, one of the city’s old favorites on the dining scene looks set to weather the storm of the current economic crisis and the slow winter season. |
|
Looking at Vladimir Putin in Platon Antoniou’s 2007 portrait is like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. Enthroned at the heart of the new Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London which runs until mid-February, 2009, the Prime Minister and former President of Russia looks more lethal in his composure than anything the Bond franchise could dream up. |
|
|
|
 ISLAMABAD — Pakistan summoned U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson on Thursday to protest over missile strikes launched by pilotless drone aircraft against militant targets in Pakistan. The protest came a day after a suspected U.S. missile strike on Pakistani soil killed five militants, possibly including an Arab al Qaeda operative. |
|
|
|
 LONDON — A superb series of results, a massive lift in confidence and the development of fringe players into worthy front-line internationals is not a bad return for Fabio Capello’s first year as England manager. When the Italian was appointed last December, England’s team was in the doldrums. |
|
ATHENS — Ensuring security at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is up to Russian organizers, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Thursday amid concerns from the Games hosts’ Georgian neighbors. |
|
KANPUR, India — India claimed a 16-run win over England under the Duckworth-Lewis method in a weather-hit third one-dayer on Thursday, taking a 3-0 lead in the seven-match series. India, chasing England’s 240 all out, were 198 for five after 40 overs when poor light forced the players off the field and abruptly ended what was developing into a keen finish. |
|
MADRID — Atletico Madrid will have to play Wednesday’s Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven behind closed doors after sport’s court of arbitration (CAS) partially upheld a punishment handed down by UEFA for crowd trouble. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive