LOCAL NEWS

STATE DUMA SLAPS CAP ON MAJOR AD SELLER

MOSCOW — The television advertising market was stunned Friday by the State Duma’s decision to pass in three readings a recently submitted bill that would force industry powerhouse Video International to reduce its market share to 35 percent.

The amendments prohibit federal TV channels from signing agreements with ad houses whose market share exceeds 35 percent.

10,000 PAY LAST RESPECTS TO GAIDAR

MOSCOW — Thousands of people stood in line on a chilly Saturday morning to pay their last respects to former acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar at a funeral at the Central Clinical Hospital.

PROSECUTORS TRAPPED IN ‘CLAN WAR’

MOSCOW — The Prosecutor General’s Office announced Friday that the head of the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee, Anatoly Bagmet, had been fired for violating his oath of office.

But Bagmet refused to step aside in an indication, observers said, that a new battle has erupted between Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and the Investigative Committee, which is a part of the prosecutor’s office and headed by the independent-minded Alexander Bastrykin, a former classmate of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

PULKOVO DOUBLES CAPACITY WITH NEW AIRSTRIPS

St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport on Friday introduced two new all-weather landing strips capable of receiving all classes of aircraft, making it one of the most modern facilities of its kind in Russia.

In Brief

City Quits Tower

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) — St. Petersburg lost about $47 million while withdrawing from the controversial Okhta Center project last week.

The city sold its 22.6 percent share in the project for 2.96 billion rubles ($98.5 million) to Gazprom Neft, an oil company belonging to the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, Interfax reported on Friday.

NATIONAL NEWS

POLES, KADYROV TRADE BARBS

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and Poland’s foreign minister traded barbs after Kadyrov, who has been linked to human rights abuses in Chechnya, accused Poland of violating the rights of Chechen refugees.

Kadyrov said he has “regularly heard that Chechen refugees in Poland are living in miserable conditions” and a group of Chechens must have been desperate for trying to take a protest about Polish conditions to Strasbourg before being stopped at Poland’s border earlier in the week.

PRESIDENT TOUTS RUSSIA, QUICKLY EXITS CLIMATE TALKS

MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev touted Russia as a world leader in cutting emissions at a UN climate change conference and then took the lead in ducking out of the meeting as U.

Demolition of War Memorial In Georgia Kills Mother, Girl

TBILISI, Georgia — A mother and her 8-year-old daughter were killed in Georgia on Saturday when workers blew up a towering Soviet war memorial, Reuters reported.

The demolition, to make way for a new parliament building, was condemned by Russia and Georgia’s opposition.

The victims were killed by lumps of concrete sent hurtling into the courtyard of their home in the country’s second city of Kutaisi, local media said.

LOCAL BUSINESS

JOBLESS TOTAL AT HIGHEST IN 4 MONTHS

Unemployment rose to a four-month high in November and retail sales fell on the month after rising slightly in October, indicating that the economic recovery remains uneven and painful, according to data released Friday.

The jobless rate rose for a second month to 8.1 percent, from 7.7 percent the month before, the State Statistics Service said. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 15 economists was for a rate of 7.8 percent.

The rate, however, still remains below the five-year high of 9.5 percent registered in February.

On the positive side, Russians had more cash to spend last month than in October and completions of housing picked up by about one-fourth on the month.

CITY PLANS TO REBUILD SENNAYA CHURCH

The city’s Town Planning Council is to run an architectural design contest to select a new concept for a reconstruction of Sennaya Ploshchad in early 2010, City Hall announced on Friday.

The plans envisage the total rebuilding of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin and the construction of a massive new shopping center and hotel complex.

Yury Mityurev, St.

Daimler in Talks to Boost Kamaz Stake by 6 Percent

MOSCOW — Kamaz shareholders are negotiating to sell an additional stake of 5 percent to 6 percent to Daimler on the same terms that the German carmaker bought 10 percent last year, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov said Friday.

“We’re talking about 5 percent to 6 percent. The price remains the same as in 2008,” Chemezov told reporters, adding that it would be “more effective” for Daimler to buy a bigger stake.

OPINION

The Death of Russia’s Premier Shock Therapist

Yegor Gaidar, acting prime minister during the critical months of 1992, was 35 years old when he assumed responsibility for economic policy under President Boris Yeltsin. His tenure at the top lasted less than a year, yet it was his name that is most prominently associated with the transition from a communist, planned economy to a market-based one.