LOCAL NEWS

LEADERS SAY G8 LOSING ITS CURRENCY

MOSCOW — Against a growing chorus to expand the Group of Eight, President Dmitry Medvedev spoke on Friday in favor of keeping the G8 format as a useful tool for international policymaking.

Medvedev, speaking at a news conference at the end of the three-day G8 summit, also said Russia would continue with its individual bid to join the World Trade Organization, even though Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said June 9 that the country would suspend its bid and seek to join with Belarus and Kazakhstan as a customs union.

Leaders of the G8 rich nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States — met alone on Wednesday in  L’Aquila, Italy. On Thursday, they had sessions with six other countries, forming the so-called G14, and on the closing day they invited a number of additional states from the developing world.

TV’S ‘BRIDGE OF FREEDOM’ DESCRIBES GAYS AS ‘ABOMINATION’

A chief editor at a local television channel called homosexuality an “abomination” in a caustic reply to an open letter written by an insulted viewer. The viewer, St. Petersburg resident Maria Yefremenkova, had earlier held a one-woman protest against what she described as a “homophobic” broadcast that “discriminated” against sexual minorities.

Valery Tatarov, the editor of 100TV’s public affairs talk show “Bridge of Freedom,” refused to apologize for the broadcast, as requested by Yefremenkova.

STATION’S NAME SPARKS CONTROVERSY

An announcement last week that Russian Railways (RZD) planned to change the name of Moscow’s Leningrad railway station to Nikolayevsky sparked major discussion among both the public and political leaders.

On Thursday, RZD’s press service released information that the company’s president, Vladimir Yakunin, had signed a decree changing the name of the Leningrad railway station, which connects Russia’s two biggest cities of Moscow and St.

RIOT POLICE QUASH DEMONSTRATION BY ALTAI WORKERS

MOSCOW — Altai riot police violently dispersed a crowd of about 200 unpaid workers who tried to block the M-52 federal highway running from Novosibirsk to Mongolia on Friday.

NATIONAL NEWS

SHIP WITH TOXIC LOAD HOLED

The Captain Lus, a Russian vessel that regularly delivers radioactove cargo to St. Petersburg from abroad for subsequent reprocessing in Siberia, has collided with The Sundstraum, a Norwegian tanker, that was carrying chemicals. The Russian ship was en route from St. Petersburg to the French port of Le Havre. According to the preliminary investigation into the incident, the vessels share responsibility for causing the collision.

Rashid Alimov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the international environmental organization Bellona, told The St. Petersburg Times that The Captain Lus, which was holed in the collision, was carrying 9 containers of urainum ore concentrate on board.

WEB SITE SHUT OVER ‘MEIN KAMPF’

MOSCOW — A popular web site used by historians to explore the often-murky Soviet past has been blocked for publishing Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” in what appears to be a case of selective justice.

The site, Hronos.info, was shut down last week by its Moscow-based Internet provider after a warning from St. Petersburg’s “K” police squad, which deals in cyber crime, the site’s founder, Vyacheslav Rumyantsev, said Friday.

President Shows Off Future World Money

MOSCOW — After months of pushing for a new world currency, President Dmitry Medvedev had more than an idea to tout at his G8 news conference. He had the real thing.

With a broad grin, Medvedev held aloft a shiny gold coin Friday that he said represented a “symbol of unity” and a possible “future world currency.

LOCAL BUSINESS

FORD PLANT DOWN TO TWO SHIFTS

The local Ford Motor plant will start operating on a two-shift basis from Sept. 22, a spokeswoman for Ford’s Russian office said Monday.

Currently the plant, located in the town of Vsevolozhsk in the Leningrad Oblast, operates on a three-shift basis. All the employees currently working the third shift will be transferred to similar positions on the first and second shifts, said Yekaterina Kulinenko.

NABUCCO PIPELINE BECOMES ‘INEVITABLE’

ANKARA — Four EU countries and Turkey signed an accord Monday on building a major U.S.-backed gas pipeline to reduce European reliance on Russia amid lingering uncertainty on who will supply the gas.

In Brief

Foreigner Regulations

ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russia may simplify procedures for hiring foreigners to work in the financial industry under new legislation, Kommersant reported.

The lower house of parliament was on Monday due to consider amendments to the law that will allow employers to hire foreigners without seeking approval from the Federal Migration Service, the newspaper said, citing Kira Lukyanova, a member of the chamber’s committee on economic policy.

OPINION

The Smell of War

Will Russia launch a war against Georgia? That is the most important question that should have been decided during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow — or, to be more precise, during Obama’s breakfast meeting last Tuesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Everything else was of secondary importance.