LOCAL NEWS

POLISH TIES FACE TEST AFTER PLANE CRASH

MOSCOW — Russia’s uneasy ties with Poland face a test after Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and dozens of other senior Polish officials died in a weekend plane crash tentatively blamed on fog and pilot error.

The Polish delegation was flying to Smolensk on Saturday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of a Soviet massacre of Polish officers in the nearly village of Katyn when its descending Tu-154 plane got caught on a tree and crashed.

CONSTRUCTION STARTS ON NORD STREAM GAS PIPELINE

PORTOVAYA BAY, Leningrad Oblast — Russian and German leaders marked the start of construction on the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea on Friday.

NATIONAL NEWS

POLICEMAN SHOOTS DRIVER; DRIVER UNDER INVESTIGATION

A police officer fired rubber bullets at a packed marshrutka minibus, injuring the driver in central St. Petersburg after chasing the bus in his car in rush hour Thursday, witnesses say.

Despite witnesses’ claims that the shooting was unprovoked, the police who arrived at Teatralnaya Ploshchad, where the incident took place at about 6 p.

SAPSAN TRAIN DAMAGED AGAIN, VANDALISM SUSPECTED

The high-speed Sapsan train was involved in another incident on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg on Sunday night.

The train had to stop for more than an hour after the railway’s overhead electric cable was damaged in the Tver Oblast at 9.

LOCAL BUSINESS

IN BRIEF

WalMart Eyes Lenta

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) — Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s biggest retailer, is in talks to buy TPG’s 25 percent stake in Russian grocery chain Lenta, Vedomosti reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter.

FACEBOOK PLANS TO OPEN RUSSIAN OFFICE

MOSCOW — Social-networking site Facebook is in talks on cooperation with Russian mobile operators and is opening an office in Russia.

Within a few days, Facebook will announce the opening of its Russian office, said Unova Media, organizer of the Russian Internet Technologies conference, where Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s top software engineer, made a presentation.

MICEX MAY BUY RTS EXCHANGE

MOSCOW — MICEX Group will make an offer to buy the RTS after it gets its own house in order, turning the rival stock exchange into a full subsidiary, a Central Bank official said Wednesday.

MICEX Group may exchange its own shares for a controlling stake in the RTS after finishing the asset consolidation that it started last year, said Sergei Shvetsov, head of the Central Bank’s department for financial markets. That means that it must first gain complete control over the MICEX exchange, stakes in which are owned by a range of other banks.

“MICEX has nothing to offer RTS without vertically integrating the MICEX system itself,” Shvetsov said, adding that amendments to current legislation were needed for MICEX Group to buy out the MICEX Stock Exchange.

AEROFLOT CONSIDERS STARTING BUDGET CARRIER

MOSCOW — Aeroflot said last week that it may launch a subsidiary budget airline as part of its plans to dominate the domestic market and said it may sell more shares in a free float.

In Brief

50-Year Mortgage

MOSCOW (SPT) — There will be a new mortgage system created in the North Caucasus, allowing homebuyers to take out 50-year loans at 5 percent interest, Alexander Khloponin, presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, said Friday.

“We’re planning to create conditions for owning homes on a subsidized basis.

OPINION

CHAOS IN KYRGYZSTAN

The apparent regime change in Kyrgyzstan will either prove that the country is destined to regain its image of an “island of democracy” in Central Asia or that it is doomed to fail because of weak political institutions and deep social divisions.

After five disastrous years under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s authoritarian rule, revolutionary change is desired and feared at the same time.

LESSONS LEARNED

IKEA’s senior manager was furious as he left the meeting room of the St. Petersburg government in Smolny. On the downstairs landing, he limited himself to saying that the prospects for his company’s projects were unclear, declining to give any explanation.

CULTURE

Designers Gather for City’s Premier Fashion Extravaganza

St. Petersburg’s leading fashion event, Defile on the Neva, is in full swing, having kicked off Saturday at the Manezh Kadetskogo Korpusa, the former cadets riding school, with shows by local fashion icon Lilia Kiselenko, glamorous club-manager-turned-fashion-designer Tatyana Gordienko and Latvian designers Katya Shehurina and Anna Led.

WORLD

Gordon Brown Unveils Election Manifesto

BIRMINGHAM, U.K. — Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled his party’s election manifesto on Monday, seeking to regain the initiative after a first week of campaigning dominated by economic squabbling.

The Labor Party leader set out “a plan for national renewal” after the May 6 polls, vowing to rebuild the recession-battered economy, cut the giant deficit while protecting public services, and shake up the political system.