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Travelers should be aware that in Russia certain activities, which would be normal business activities in the United States and other countries, are still either illegal under the Russian legal code or are considered suspect by the FSB. Rules governing the treatment of information remain poorly defined. |
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MOSCOW - At least 23 sailors aboard the Kursk survived the initial explosions that caused the nuclear submarine to sink and sat waiting in the dark at the bottom of the Barents Sea, according to an officer's note revealed Thursday. |
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The clocks go back this weekend, which for most means a luxurious extra hour in bed. But a group of Russian biologists, astronomers and other specialists will be continuing to argue against the time change, which, they say, is damaging to people's health, impairs productivity in the workplace, increases the number of road accidents, and drives some to drink, drugs, and even suicide. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The Press Ministry is pushing for legislation that would ban foreign-owned media from operating in Russia, fueling fresh fears that the government might curb press freedoms. Speaking at a conference on information policy, Press Minister Mikhail Lesin pushed for amendments to federal legislation that would make it more difficult for Western media to operate in Russia. "The legislation must be corrected to meet present day requirements, gazeta.ru quotes Lesin as saying on Tuesday. "As regards Western media, not all legislative issues have been decided, however, as they are linked to the work of certain companies." A representative of the Kremlin's influential Security Council threw in his support for the draft law Monday, saying Russian-owned media should be favored by the government. |
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 Public transport safety regulations could take half of the city's marshrutki, or minibus taxis, off the streets come January. But according to officials, this could be with good reason - for many of the vehicles thousands of people take to get around the city may be death traps. |
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MOSCOW - Dozens of men who took part in the clean-up after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster marched around the Kremlin on Wednesday to protest a draft amendment to a law that they fear would cut their benefits. Televised reports showed the haggard protesters being turned away by police from one entrance to Red Square before they were allowed to enter from the Alexander Gardens. |
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MOSCOW - A Russian weapons designer testified Thursday in the espionage trial of U.S. businessman Edmond Pope that the plans Pope is accused of trying to acquire illegally were not classified, the defense lawyer said. |
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A top prosecutor told parliament Wednesday that investigations inspired by the August 1998 financial crash had so far identified 170 Central Bank and Finance Ministry officials who appear to have played the GKO market and not paid taxes on their earnings. Deputy Prosecutor General Vasily Kolmogorov also said "some" of those officials appear to have been involved in broad insider trading arrangements - under which they accepted money in return for well-timed hints to get out of the collapsing market in GKOs and OFZs, or Russian treasury bills. "It is clear that some officials of the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry have received large monetary awards for what we could assume was the use of highly classified insider information," Kol mogorov told a hearing at the Federation Council, parliament's upper house. |
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 BATUMI, Georgia - Rescue teams on Thursday picked their way through the burnt-out wreckage of a Russian military plane which ploughed into a mountain in ex-Soviet Georgia, killing more than 80 people including eight children. |
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In 1997, former St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak was facing arrest for alleged embezzlement, graft and corruption. According to his accusers, Sob chak had abused his executive privileges and filled posh addresses with his relatives and cronies. But a passage in former president Boris Yeltsin's new book, "Presidential Marathon," while not absolving Sob chak of all guilt, nevertheless accuses the mayor's former enemies of orchestrating a witch hunt - and gives Yelt sin's own version of how former Sob chak lieutenant Vladimir Yakovlev came to power. |
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Lower Life Expectancy MOSCOW (Reuters) - Officials painted a worsening picture of Russians' health on Tuesday, blaming poor social conditions and too much drinking and smoking. |
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The Federal Energy Commission (FEC) will raise electricity tariffs by 31 percent and heat tariffs by 14 percent as of Nov. 1, instead of the 50 percent on electricity and 20 percent on heat requested by Lenenergo, Interfax reported last week. On Aug. |
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Inflation remains the government's major short-term economic concern. "We must maintain macroeconomic equilibrium and not allow a surge in inflation when distributing extra budget revenues," Prime Minister Mikhail Kasya nov said Thursday at a regular cabinet meeting. |
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MOSCOW - The nation's leading financial groups are eagerly eyeing the prize assets of Ukraine as Russia's neighbor launches a major sale of state enterprises, years after Moscow's criticized privatizations of the early 1990s. Local companies have been particularly drawn to Ukraine's petrochemical and aluminum sectors, despite enterprises in those sectors being heavily debt-ridden. |
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VIENNA - The nation's largest oil company LUKoil will be among a number of major local companies traded on the electronic New Europe Exchange, NEWEX, when it is launched Nov. |
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MOSCOW - Property taxes may soon be applied to all the nation's homeowners, regardless of whether their properties are finished or not. Under the law, property tax is not charged until a building has been registered by the state. The state register of structures and facilities is kept by the Justice Ministry, but buildings cannot be included in the register until they have passed through the technical specifications bureau, which in turn will not give its approval until construction has been completed. |
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MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry was happy with the results of a three-month GKO treasury bill auction Wednesday that produced an average yield of 10.53 percent, but dealers said the sale was not an easy one. |
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MOSCOW - Ukraine showed the first signs of unease Tuesday over plans by Russian and Western companies to build a gas pipeline bypassing its territory and said it hoped Moscow would continue using its territory for gas transit. Gas giant Gazprom announced last week it had signed a letter of intent with Germany's Ruhrgas and Wintershall, France's Gaz de France and Italy's Snam to create a new export channel bypassing Ukraine to ship more gas to energy-hungry European consumers. |
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Russia's Lady Justice Seems Blind Indeed THERE is no justice. At least, that's the impression one gets watching the government and the Duma set policies on benefit payments to "privileged categories" of citizens. For instance, on Wednesday dozens of men who participated in the cleanup of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster gathered near Red Square to protest government moves that they believe will reduce their benefit payments. |
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Disaster Follows When Generals Lead the Way THE recent escalation of the violence in the Middle East prompted many to compare the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians to that between Russia and Chechnya. |
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OBSERVING the recent events in Serbia reaffirms my conviction that Reinhard Bendix got it right so many years ago when he wrote: "In our time, not only democracies but also military regimes, dictatorships, and even constitutional monarchies are legitimized by claims of popular mandate. |
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A former mental asylum patient and would-be spy, who became a wanted entrepreneur of dubious reputation, escaped an eighth assassination attempt over the weekend as hitmen sprayed over 40 bullets in his direction. |
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 Dva Samaliota are preparing to do something they haven't done for the past couple of years - play a full show at a large venue. They have also just shot the second video for their new album which will be released by the major Russian label Real next month. |
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Ivan Bunin might seem like a difficult choice for the subject of a biopic, but then Alexei Uchitel's new film "His Wife's Diary" is not a straightforward docudrama. |
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Alexander Galibin, who recently premiered August Strindberg's "Miss Julie" at the Baltiisky Dom Theater, is one of the more unpredictable directors in St. Petersburg. After he staged the pompous "The Story of Tsar Peter and His Murdered Son, Alexei" in the Alexandrinsky Theater, he switched to a neorealistic production "The Billiard Cannon," at the Theater on Liteiny, which tells the story of family relations. But his production of "Miss Julie" is worth separate discussion. A hundred years have passed since playwrights were thrilled by the possibilities that Freud's theories revealed to them. But nowadays the major conflicts of "New Drama," such as the relations between the sexes and the role of heredity, seem old fashioned and the material itself bulky. |
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 This year, the entire cultural world will be marking the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death with respect and gratitude for the legacy left by the composer. |
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It is not as easy as it seems to find the right place to get cosy with an old friend. We phoned each other three times before we agreed on Drago. The trip took us far from the center, to Primorsky Prospect, but we still had no regrets about the time we spent at St. |
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With no hugely interesting events on Friday, the weekend really opens with Mumii Troll on Saturday. The Trolls came to the city twice in the course of their 1999/2000 "Rtut Aloe" Tour - to promote last year's album "Toch no Rtut Aloe," and now return with the "Bez Obmana" Tour - to promote the recent single of the same name, which contains, well, mostly songs and remixes from last year's album. |
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U.S. on Alert ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) - U.S. officials went on alert on Wednesday night following unspecified threats against Americans in the southern Yemeni port city where 17 sailors were killed by an apparent suicide bombing of a U.S. destroyer this month. |
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WASHINGTON - Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore both claimed momentum on Thursday in their neck-and-neck presidential race, which is turning into a war of attrition in key states with 12 days to go. |
 JERUSALEM - He could be a passenger on an Israeli bus. A shopper at a market. A man disguised as a woman. Or a man on a bicycle. The bomb strapped to the person's chest or back could go off at any time. So it was that Israeli nerves were frayed on Thursday by a Palestinian suicide cyclist from the Islamic Jihad movement who blew himself up beside an Israeli army outpost in Gaza, lightly wounding a soldier. |
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Issues Archive