LOCAL NEWS

VISAS OFF SUMMIT AGENDA

MOSCOW — The European Union’s new leadership made its maiden visit to the country for an EU-Russia summit Monday, but the two-day talks appeared unlikely to yield substantial results.

Herman Van Rompuy, who heads the reformed European Council, foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and commission president Jose Manuel Barroso are for the first time representing the 27-member bloc since Lisbon Treaty reforms came into force in December during their meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev and other government officials in Rostov-on Don.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is not attending the meetings.

But they won’t offer any eased visa regulations because of strong opposition from within the EU against granting Moscow any concessions ahead of other post-Soviet states like Georgia and Ukraine.

EUROPEAN EMBANKMENT TO COST $1.6 BILLION

The cost of the European Embankment project, an ambitious construction plan backed by City Hall and funded by VTB (Vneshtorgbank) Development Company, will cost up to 48 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) and take nearly 10 years to complete, VTB head Andrei Kostin told reporters at a presentation in St. Petersburg on Saturday.

VTB Development Company is headed by Sergei Matviyenko, son of St.

MASS ARRESTS DASH HOPES

A protest demonstration in central St. Petersburg was brutally broken up by police officers on Monday evening, dashing hopes raised by a weekend meeting between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and members of the city’s intelligentisa.

About 100 protesters who gathered in front of Gostiny Dvor at 6 p.

VOTERS BACK SAAKASHVILI

TBILISI — Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party headed for a landslide win in municipal elections Monday but victory was marred after Western observers said the vote suffered “significant shortcomings.

NATIONAL NEWS

INTERNET PROVIDERS TO TIGHTEN UP NET

Several Russian Internet providers signed a resolution Friday on Internet security, with the specific aim of protecting the country’s web from child pornography.

The resolution is expected to help the development of transparent and effective control mechanisms over illegal content on the Internet, such as child pornography or materials inciting religious or national hatred, which remain widespread on Russian web sites.

“We believe that big companies which form the image of the local Internet industry should not remain indifferent to the problem,” Alexander Panov, a partner of Hosting Community, one of Russia’s leading Internet providers, said Friday at the annual Hostobzor providers’ forum in Roshchino in the Leningrad Oblast.

GAY ACTIVISTS OUTWIT POLICE IN CAT-AND-MOUSE PROTEST

MOSCOW — About 30 international gay rights activists held a brief protest on a central Moscow street Saturday, flouting the city authorities’ ban on a gay pride event in a “cat and mouse game” with police.

The activists, led by Russian Nikolai Alexeyev and also including British campaigner Peter Tatchell and German MP Volker Beck, ran along Leningradsky Prospekt in central Moscow with a huge rainbow flag.

RUSSIA WANTS LAWYERS

MOSCOW — Wanted: A high-profile lawyer to work on Russian cases in the European Court of Human Rights; Yukos case possibly included.

Employer: The Russian government.

Compensation: Up to 7.5 million rubles ($238,000) for a six-month contract.

The Justice Ministry has turned to an online state tender as it goes to new lengths to fend off a wave of Russia-related complaints in the court in Strasbourg, France.

COMMENT

Thirteen years ago I used to write a restaurant column in a local business paper. It was a great time for the catering business. Italian and French cuisine were favorites, while St.

LOCAL BUSINESS

FEDERAL MONUMENTS TO BECOME HOTELS

City Hall has put up three federal monuments for conversion into hotels in exchange for 161 million rubles ($5.3 million). The buildings have been given to structures close to the co-owners of Ilim group, brothers Boris and Mikhail Zingarevich.

All three resolutions, which are available to Vedomosti, were adopted on May 4 at a closed government meeting.

LOCAL TYCOON EYES KARSTADT

Karstadt, one of Germany’s most prominent retail companies, may soon become the property of a Russian businessman.

St. Petersburg entrepreneur Artur Pakhomov is willing to buy Karstadt, which is currently undergoing bankruptcy procedures.

Cash-Strapped Belarus Snubs Customs Talks

Russia and Kazakhstan said Friday that they planned to join the WTO together, but without Belarus, which snubbed a meeting on their trilateral customs union after Moscow ignored President Alexander Lukashenko’s offer to trade Belarussian energy assets for lower fuel prices.

The prime ministers from Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus had been scheduled to meet in St.