|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Police have opened a software piracy investigation into the Russian branch of LG Electronics, in the first anti-piracy case against a major foreign company. Pirated software is widely used in companies and homes across the country, and the LG investigation, triggered by an anonymous tip, could carry serious implications if expanded beyond the South Korean firm. “For the first time in Russian legal practice, a criminal case over counterfeit software has been opened against a big foreign company,” the Interior Ministry’s economic crimes department said Wednesday in a statement. The statement did not identify the company. But the Business Software Alliance, a global intellectual property rights watchdog, confirmed that it was LG. |
|
 Despite Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s warning, hundreds more people than ever before took part in the banned pro-constitution demos in Moscow and St. |
|
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dipped a careful toe into the heated and high-stakes battle for control of Russia’s largest miner on Tuesday, telling Norilsk Nickel’s warring shareholders during a visit to the plant that it paid unusually high dividends last year. |
|
A new TV channel, 100-percent owned by the City Administration and titled “St. Petersburg” will begin its broadcasting on Oct. 10. Yuri Zinchuk, the channel’s general director said that the channel will focus on the city’s social issues with an emphasis being placed on informative programming. |
|
MOSCOW — The opposition’s attempts to stage rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg got an unexpected boost this week when Russian emigrants took to the streets in several world capitals to express their solidarity. The 31st rallies, which took place in London, Berlin, New York and Tel Aviv, attracted only a handful of people, but some well-known emigres were spotted among the protesters. |
|
A number of regions in the European section of Russia are now facing shortages in eggs that will in turn lead to significant price increases. The shortages are largely the result of the exceptionally high temperatures experienced over the summer and the hurricane that hit the Leningrad Oblast in August, Interfax reported. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
 An eight-story building that until recently housed the city’s main police investigation department partially collapsed on Wednesday. The building, located in the city center at 145 Ligovsky Prospekt was under repair and there were no people inside apart from four employees of a store located on the ground floor. One of the employees, a 23-year-old manager, received a light injury, Fontanka.ru reported. As the city’s emergency service feared that people could be under the debris, 12 emergency rescue teams were sent to search for them, the press service of the St. Petersburg Emergency Service said. As a result of the collapse, a large section of Ligovsky Prospekt was closed to give emergency and other services free access, causing substantial traffic jams. |
|
FREE FOR ALL
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Participants attend the Russian Territory - Digital Space conference at the Presidential Library on Senate Square on Wednesday. From Sept. 1, the Russian Territory collection of books, maps, atlases and photographs can be accessed for free on www.prlib.ru. |
|
MOSCOW — The state will not privatize stakes in its natural monopolies or defense firms next year, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina told reporters Tuesday in the latest sign of skittishness in the government to part with key assets. In late July, Nabiullina and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin put together a list of 11 state-run companies in which stakes should be privatized through 2013.
|
|
MOSCOW — Masked intruders broke into the Moscow region branch of the Investigative Committee early Tuesday, rifling through 18 offices and cracking open 25 safes after tying up the sole security guard, investigators said. But the Investigative Committee’s main office insisted that the mysterious break-in was a run-of-the-mill robbery, fueling speculation that the incident was an attempt to undermine a high-profile criminal investigation. Three masked intruders broke into a building belonging to the committee’s Moscow region branch on Rusakovskaya Ulitsa in northeast Moscow at about 4 a.m. Tuesday, the Investigative Committee said in a statement. |
|
 MOSCOW — A mother of four who is pregnant with a fifth child has become a cause celebre after a court jailed her for three years even though it could have waived the sentence under a legal provision allowing leniency for mothers with young children. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW — Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soft-drink maker, said Wednesday that it had acquired one of Russia’s biggest juice producers, Nidan Soki, as part of its plans to expand in the fast-growing market. The company bought a 75 percent stake in Nidan from London-based investment firm Lion Capital, as well as the remaining 25 percent held by Nidan’s founders. |
|
MOSCOW — A Moscow court awarded 5 million rubles, or $160,000, in damages to Knauf in a case against a counterfeiter, the German building materials manufacturer said Wednesday. |
 MOSCOW — Aeroflot has filed a lawsuit against the Moscow city government, seeking compensation for losses caused by a days-long traffic logjam on a highway leading to Sheremetyevo Airport, court documents showed Wednesday. City Hall denied any wrongdoing. |
|
MOSCOW — The government may sell more than 35 percent of VTB to bring its stake in the bank to just over 50 percent, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in comments released Monday, a move that may force the lender toward greater transparency. |
|
|
|
 This summer has been one of weather-related extremes in Russia, Pakistan, China, Europe, the Arctic — you name it. But does this have anything to do with global warming, and are human emissions to blame? While it cannot be scientifically proven — or disproven, for that matter — that global warming caused any particular extreme event, we can say that global warming very likely makes many kinds of extreme weather both more frequent and more severe. |
|
Moscow’s horrendous daily traffic jams and this summer’s wildfires have something in common: The roots of both of these problems can be found in the government’s gross incompetence. |
|
|
|
 The history of the “Dream Factory” takes center stage at this year’s Open Cinema international short film festival which kicks off at the Dom Kino cinema on Friday. Open Cinema, arguably Russia’s premiere short film and animation event, is celebrating Hollywood’s 100th anniversary with a string of exciting offerings, from the screening of D.W. Griffith’s movie “In Old California” (1910), which was shot in the north-west of Los Angeles, to a thrilling photographic exhibition showcasing more than twenty images of Hollywood icons such as Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe. The display, which opened on Sept. 2 at the Mikhail Shemyakin Foundation, can be seen until Sept. 12. The Hollywood anniversary has influenced the whole concept and style of this year’s rendition of Open Cinema. |
|
/ For The St. Petersburg Times
‘Squirrels’ painted by Anya Abelit, one of a series of images released by the Pavlovsk Museum to mark Pavlovsk Squirrel Day, which it celebrates on Sunday. |
|
Ìîëíèÿ: a lightning bolt, a news flash, a zipper Everyone knows that during a thunderstorm, you wait for a bolt of lightning (ìîëíèÿ) and then count the seconds until you hear the clap of thunder (ãðîì). If you’re in Russia and there are five seconds between light and sound, the storm is five kilometers away. If you’re in the United States, the storm is five miles away (about eight kilometers).
|
 Every night, TNT airs a show called “Sex With Anfisa Chekhova,” whose curvaceous host promises that she knows “everything about sex.” In a show this week, a man confessed to replacing his wife with a rubber doll, a stripper called Cleopatra took a barking man for a walk on a leash, and a focus group of men explained why women should wear see-through underwear. |
|
Many of St. Petersburg’s restaurant owners have the curious habit of mixing various kinds of cuisines in their establishments. Combinations such as Chinese and European food, or Japanese and Traditional occur frequently without any apparent rhyme or reason. |
|
|
|
 WASHINGTON — Israeli and Palestinian leaders are set to resume direct talks on Thursday, seeking to clinch an elusive peace deal for the Middle East within a year against a backdrop of renewed violence. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas prepared to sit down for their first direct talks in 20 months, Hamas claimed responsibility for the West Bank shooting of two Israelis. |
|
THATTA, Pakistan — Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the “unprecedented scale” of the disaster, with the flow of international aid almost at a standstill, the UN said Thursday. |
|
RALEIGH, North Carolina —Tens of thousands of people were ordered to evacuate North Carolina’s barrier islands as Hurricane Earl closed in on a large part of the US east coast on Thursday. The strongest Atlantic storm of 2010 was on course to lash the coast of North Carolina and then move north, wreaking havoc on the end-of-summer Labor Day holiday weekend that usually draws millions to the beaches. |
|
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard won the support of a key independent MP on Thursday, leaving her close to breaking the worst political deadlock in decades after elections failed to produce a winner. |
Temp: -1°C clear 
Issues Archive