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FRANKFURT ON ODER/SLUBICE BORDER, Poland - The burly Estonian truck driver looks on calmly as German customs officers hack chunks of his consignment of butter into plastic bags for forensic tests. The officers at Frankfurt on Oder, the European Union's biggest border post with Poland and a major hub for international organized crime, can smell fraud and, on this occasion, they turn out to be right. |
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Gasoline retailers and energy-sector analysts in St. Petersburg - while avoiding the word "crisis" - are predicting an "aggressive" increase in the price of gasoline in the city, owing to a shrinking supply triggered by high world oil prices. |
 In an effort to trace hundreds of French nationals who disappeared into the Soviet Union, the St. Petersburg Medical and Military Archive has this month agreed to release fresh information to an organization dedicated to the task. The Association Edouard Kalifat has already found 50 Western European nationals since it was established in 1994. |
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MOSCOW - Kremlin-installed Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov accused federal troops of unprovoked attacks even on Chechen villages with administrations loyal to Moscow, and warned authorities that people's patience was wearing thin. |
All photos from issue.
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As the head of the Interior Ministry was berating city law enforcement officials on Friday for not doing enough to beat crime, a local investigator was surviving an assassination attempt when a lone gunman shot him as he was about to drive to work. Vasily Beglov, 43, a financial-crimes investigator for the St. |
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Russia Signs Treaty n UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Russia signed a treaty creating the world's first permanent war-crimes court Wednesday, leaving the United States and China as the only permanent UN Security Council members that haven't endorsed it. |
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Swiss investigators gave prosecutors over the weekend several boxes of files on criminal cases involving some of Russia's high-profile figures, Interfax reported. The handover Saturday occurred a day after Swiss prosecutors accused the Prosecutor General's Office of dragging its feet on the cases and demanded assurances that evidence gathered by the Swiss was actually being put to use. Interfax quoted a Russian official saying the documents provided by the Swiss filled several boxes and complemented materials brought earlier from Bern by special prosecutor Nikolai Volkov. Volkov, who headed work on one of two key cases, dubbed the Aero flot case, has since been removed from his post, prompting doubts about Russia's willingness to pursue the investigation. |
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 MOSCOW - Hundreds of Moscow police shut down an area of several city blocks on Monday ahead of the opening in Moscow of a new Jewish community center where President Vladimir Putin was to give the keynote address. |
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MOSCOW - A group of deep-sea divers will travel abroad for final training before beginning work on retrieving the remains of 118 sailors from the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Monday. Klebanov, who is heading an investigation into the Kursk disaster, also denied reports that the divers' training had been delayed because of a disagreement over financing, saying the retrieval project was on schedule. |
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The St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly last week approved the appointment of seven new judges whose job it will be to rule on local legislation and gubernatorial decrees and check that they correspond to the City Charter. |
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EQUITIES sank lower following the global stock market trends. The RTS index was down 7.5 percent on the week to 210.54 even though oil prices held firm in London. The Brent futures edged up 3.66 percent on the week to close at $33.98 Friday - a margin below 10-year highs - despite the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' decision to raise production by 800,000 barrels to 26. |
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LONDON - It wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and only happens every 100,000 years, but British scientists said Monday it is now time to take steps to protect Earth from a major asteroid strike. |
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NEW YORK - Wall Street this week is bracing for more companies warning soaring oil prices and a strong U.S. dollar will cut into their bottom line. "What's going to move the market is the weak Euro, higher energy prices and softening economic demand, how that will be impacting the guidance that companies are giving - that is the focus of Wall Street," said Richard Cripps, chief market strategist at Legg Mason in Baltimore. |
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PARIS - Biotechnology can make a big contribution to reducing world hunger and help reverse a trend toward disappointing crop yields, the UN said on Friday. |
 A new oil terminal to be used for shipping diesel and fuel oil was officially opened at the St. Petersburg Sea Port, located in the city's southwest, on Friday. According to Igor Teleshev, general manager of the Petersburg Oil Terminal (POT), Russia loses from $1. |
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AO Electrosila, Russia's leading maker of generators for power stations and one of St. Petersburg's leading industrial concerns, said it will invest between $50 million and $70 million over the next two years to begin production of traction engines for use in electric suburban trains (elektrichki), city trams and subways. |
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MOSCOW - Two aluminum barons mapped out a merger plan Monday to create a business with combined annual revenues of $1.4 billion and 20 percent of Russia's total aluminum output. "The idea behind the merger is to increase the market value of the business and increase investment attractiveness," said Viktor Vekselberg, head of Siberian-Urals Aluminum Company, or SUAL, which will merge with Trustconsult. |
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BOJ Report Positive n TOKYO (AP) - The Japanese economy is recovering gradually, with corporate profits and business investment on the rise, the Bank of Japan said in its monthly report today. |
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FRANKFURT - Germany's Dresdner Bank AG said on Monday it had agreed to buy U.S. investment bank Wasserstein Perella in an all-share deal worth about $1.37 billion. Germany's third-largest bank said it would combine Wasserstein with its own investment banking division, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, to create Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the world's sixth-biggest mergers and acquisitions adviser. |
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FRANKFURT, Germany - Frankfurt's Deutsche Boerse AG plans to form a consortium with the Milan and Madrid bourses to make a bid for the London Stock Exchange and is prepared to launch a hostile bid if necessary, a German magazine said on Sunday. |
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MOSCOW - Clouds are again gathering over the head of Rem Vyakhirev, chief executive of natural-gas monopoly Gazprom. This time the threat is coming from the company's private shareholders, who have sent several top government officials a letter severely criticizing Gaz prom's leadership and calling for the management to be fired and replaced. |
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MOSCOW - Only three investors are bidding for the state's 85-percent stake in Onako, the nation's 11th largest oil producer, Vedomosti reported Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Two months after settling with creditors and two years after its default after the August 1998 crisis, Uneximbank announced Monday the completion of its merger with Rosbank. "This is no longer just a plan, the process is over," said Vladimir Potanin, president of the Interros holding, which owns Rosbank, metals giant Norilsk Nickel, oil producer Sidanko and the newspapers Izvestia and Komsomolskaya Pravda. |
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IN recent months, a new word has entered the vocabulary of media-watchers in Russia: informbezopasnost, or information security. In June, the Security Council produced a draft "information security doctrine," a 46-page policy statement that will guide the actions of the executive branch in regard to the mass media. |
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WHEN Tony Blair was elected prime minister of the United Kingdom in May 1997 with the largest parliamentary majority in living memory, it was largely due to his image as a leader who would deliver firm but fair government for the "ordinary people" he made such an effort to woo. |
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l Oil major Tyumen was given a U.S.-backed $292 million loan to revitalize Siberia's giant Samotlor oil field. The 10-year loan, guaranteed by the Export-Import bank of the United States, will let Tyumen Oil Co. buy oil equipment and services from the Texas-based Halliburton Co. |
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THROUGH the use of genetic engineering, scientists are able to insert specific genes into the genetic codes of plants, allowing them to alter an array of the plants' characteristics. |
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Tony Blair showed real backbone last week. Faced with a stunningly effective blockade by truckers protesting high fuel prices, the British prime minister flatly refused to give in to demands for tax cuts. The initial result was extensive disruption - not just closed gas stations but shortages of bread and milk in supermarkets, delays in medical procedures and in general a state of chaos all too reminiscent of the U. |
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Last week, the authorities announced that the nation's armed forces would be slashed by around a third over the next three years, to 850,000 men from the present standing strength of 1. |
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THIS fall, the army will induct draftees who don't remember the days of Leonid Brezhnev. Yes, 15 years have passed since the beginning of perestroika. The Soviet era has slipped away. For most of us, the Soviet Union is our biography. For our young people, it is history. But even those who lived most of their lives during the Soviet period have adapted to the changes. |
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McEnroe Lashes Out n LONDON (AP) - John McEnroe says the Williams sisters, while playing winning tennis, unfortunately lack respect and humility. The mellowed bad boy of the sport took the sisters to task in a column in Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper. |
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Aid Worker Slain n GENEVA (AP) - A UN refugee worker was killed and a second was kidnapped in a raid Sunday in West Africa, officials said. The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. |
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ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast's military ruler, Gen. Robert Guei, is still in charge of the country after an armed attack on his private residence was repelled during the night, the junta's spokes man said on Monday. "Guei is in command," Communication Minister Henri Cesar Sama told state radio. |
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NEW YORK - If you want your spouse to quit smoking or get off the couch and exercise more, stop nagging and get moving. According to a recent study in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, people are more likely to motivate their spouse to take up healthy habits when they engage in the desired health behavior. |
 SYDNEY - Flying Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband blocked the triumphant Olympics progress of Australian swimming hero Ian Thorpe Monday when he robbed him of a third gold medal in the 200-meters freestyle. Despite the cheers of a frenzied home crowd, van den Hoogenband ruined the Australian party by winning a magnificent four-lap showdown and beating the "Thorpedo" into second place. |
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HOUSTON - Moises Alou drove in four runs to become just the fourth player in Astros history to record multiple 100-RBI seasons as Houston completed a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 5-3 victory Sunday. |
 LIMA, Peru - President Alberto Fujimori summoned his closest allies to the presidential palace after leaving Peru in political limbo with the bombshell announcement that he was calling new elections but would not run in them. As congressmen and ministers arrived for a meeting with Fujimori on Sunday, the man who wants to take his place in the palace flew home from the United States to a hero's welcome. |
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SKA St. Petersburg picked up its first win of the season on Friday, defeating Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod 4-2 at the Yubileiny Sports Palace. Head coach Rafail Ishmatov's decision to add 19-year-old winger Andrei She fer to Oleg Kuzmin and Viktor Be lya kov's forward line proved successful as the trio factored in all the team's scoring. |
 SYDNEY - Chinese weightlifter Yang Xia smashed three world records in a gripping battle with a former teammate to take the Olym pic gold medal in the women's 53 kg competition Monday. Taiwan's Li Feng-Ying took silver and Winarni Slamet of Indonesia won bronze. Li, who competed with Yang on a team in China's Hunan province before moving to Taiwan, set the first world record of the contest with a snatch of 98 kg but failed with her second effort of 100 kg. |
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