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 MOSCOW - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday he believed Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin had the right approach to tackling Russia's problems and suggested progress could be made on disputed arms control issues. Embarking on a lightning visit to Moscow, his fifth meeting with Putin this year, Blair said he understood the Russian president was a strong leader. |
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After 10 years as a forgotten item on the government's "to do" list, Russia's wordless anthem has edged back onto the political agenda. The fledgling State Council, an advisory body made up of regional leaders, is scheduled to discuss the problem at its upcoming meeting Wednesday. |
 After two years of investigation into the assassination of prominent State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, the Federal Security Service said this week that there is a "real chance" that the case will be solved. The announcement, which came on Wednesday, followed a report in an Estonian paper last week that said detectives had traced the weapon used to kill Starovoitova to a criminal gang operating in Estonia. |
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Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has been summoned to the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office for interrogation about the city's finances from 1992 to 1996 - years when Kudrin and Vla dimir Putin were two top deputy mayors - in a case that many observers see as politically motivated. |
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MOSCOW - One of Russia's most prominent journalists appeared before prosecutors on Monday and his colleagues said the encounter could be a pointer to the state of press freedom under President Vladimir Putin. Yevgeny Kiselyov, anchorman for private NTV's flagship analytical programme Itogi, was answering questions in what the prosecutor's office said was a probe into the security service of media empire Media-MOST, which is alleged to have spied on other companies and on some government agencies. The summons served on Kiselyov was the latest blow in a battle pitting Russian authorities against media magnates who grew wealthy in the aftermath of the collapse of Soviet rule. |
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 MOSCOW - Vladimir Dovgan, the flamboyantly buoyant entrepreneur, is lurching into a new project: selling inspirational and self-improvement audio recordings via an army of fanaticized recruits. |
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City Prosecutor Ivan Sydoruk has filed what is most likely to be a winning protest with the Legislative Assembly over a semi-dry law introduced on certain parts of Vasiliyevsky Ostrov last month. At the basis of his complaint, filed Thursday, is the disparity between local and federal laws: Local law says the local authorities can set the times during which alcohol is sold. Federal law, however, says only federal mandates can set or change the times during which alcohol is sold. The Vasiliyevsky Ostrov incident reached a head when local residents began complaining of drunken brawls, urine-soaked entry ways and late-night revelry which they said was due to the late-night sale of hard liquor. |
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 Yury Kresanov, captain of the Nortlandia trawler that capsized after an accident and spilled several tons of fuel into Kronshtadt harbor on Nov. 15, has died of injuries sustained during the incident. |
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MOSCOW - Presidential bodyguards beat up several dozen people in two incidents in the Black Sea resort of Sochi while President Vladimir Putin was vacationing there in late October, according to a witness and news reports. The incidents - one at the Sochi Adler Airport and the second at a local nightclub - were discussed in the local Sochi media and reported nationally by Novaya Gazeta. Local law enforcement agencies made no official statements. "In any normal country, this could become a serious political scandal," said Novaya Gazeta's Sochi correspondent Sergei Zalovkin in a telephone interview Friday. "Here we have dead silence." Zalovkin, a former police investigator, said he had interviewed many of the people who suffered in the brawls, but he refused to disclose their names, saying he feared for their safety. |
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 Two years after Galina Starovoitova was gunned down by assassins still unknown, a museum has opened in St. Petersburg in her memory. The site chosen for the museum was her old office at 35 Bolshaya Morskaya Ul. |
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FSB Raids Newspaper MOSCOW (SPT) - The Federal Security Service raided the offices of the Versia weekly on Friday, seizing documents related to a recently published story about the Kursk disaster. Correspondent Dmitry Filimonov wrote in the story that the Kursk sank after colliding with a U. |
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MOSCOW - After months of wrangling and a sudden breakdown earlier this week, state-controlled Gazprom-Media and Vladimir Gu sinsky's Media-MOST signed a contract Friday settling the media empire's debts to the gas giant, both companies said. |
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MOSCOW - The outcome of an International Monetary Fund delegation's visit to Moscow, scheduled to end Tuesday, is predicted to be inconclusive and it remains unclear whether Russia will reach a new agreement with the IMF. IMF representatives have expressed strong dissatisfaction with Russia's program of structural reforms, Vremya Novostei reported Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Human rights commissioner Oleg Mironov has appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office to "check out the legality of cutting off electricity to citizens who pay for it," Interfax reported Monday. |
 MOSCOW - The Finance Ministry is preparing a draft law to abolish the tax on buying hard currency. In addition, officials intend to cancel the 0.8 percent tax on transactions with securities. The ministry's proposal to cancel the 1 percent tax on currency purchases will most likely be opposed by the left, though their influence in the legislative body is minimal. |
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ABU SIR, Egypt - Archaeologists excavating a 4,000-year-old tomb near Cairo found an empty sarcophagus on Monday that they said could yield vital clues about the collapse of the pyramid-building era in ancient Egypt. |
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CHICAGO - An Indianapolis judge said Bridgestone/Firestone Corp. must halt the systematic destruction of its recalled tires until it is clear some will be retained as evidence in lawsuits against the beleaguered company, the Indianapolis Star reported on Saturday. |
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MOSCOW -Just a month before the Kremlin is to present a plan to overhaul the power sector, national power giant Unified Energy Systems decided to strike out on its own with a revamp of some operations. |
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ONE of the primary concerns of just about every businessman and company throughout the world is how to protect their commercial secrets, or "know-how," from unauthorized use by other parties, especially their competitors. This especially affects businesses, which prefer to protect their commercial secrets as know-how, rather than as patented inventions. |
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Amid the general tax-cutting fanfare announced in Part II of the Tax Code this past summer (2001 reductions to the individual, social and turnover taxes), there was some less-hyped enabling legislation, which will allow municipalities to introduce a 5 percent local portion to the corporate profits tax. |
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KIEV, Ukraine - Sun Interbrew, a joint venture of Belgian brewing giant Interbrew and Sun Group, bought a stake of about 80 percent in Ukraine's Rohan brewery, Rohan president Hennady Bilokur said Thursday. "Sun Interbrew has purchased a stake of around 80 percent from portfolio investors," Bilokur said in a telephone interview. |
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Coke Looks To Expand NEW YORK (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co. is in intensive talks to buy Quaker Oats Co., offering about $15 billion in a deal that would put leading sports drink Gatorade in the hands of the world's largest soft drink maker, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Sunday. |
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NEW YORK - Wall Street bulls will pounce once the long-running presidential stalemate is settled, but they may have to sit it out this holiday-shortened week. "If there's no resolution, Monday and Tuesday will be under that cloud," said Larry Wachtel of Prudential Securities, who expects a rally once the nagging question of who will become America's next president is put to rest. |
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MOSCOW - In a move to curb illegal imports of foreign cars, import tariffs on all automobiles will be reduced from 30 percent to 25 percent as of Jan. 1, 2001, Prime-Tass reported Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying Monday after a meeting of the Foreign Trade Commission. |
 TOKYO - Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. shrunk its two-legged humanoid robot and gave it a new name on Monday, but said the company had no plans to commercialize the machine. "ASIMO" is a smaller and more versatile successor to a prototype unveiled in July, and has shed almost 70 kg in weight and 40 cm in height to weigh 43 kg and stand 120 cm tall. |
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Local Markets Edge Up Ahead of U.S. Decision REUTERS MOSCOW - Russian shares closed a touch up last week despite turbulence on the NASDAQ that was partly due to speculation that a decision on the winner of the U. |
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Viruses, the destructive little programs striking fear in the hearts of all computer users, may be finding their way into a new field of technology - cell phones. While the first case of a cell phone in Russia being infected has yet to be reported, the Norwegian company Web2Wap, which produces software for Internet transfer to mobile phones, said in August that Nokia brand phones in Norway have ceased to function after receiving certain types of text messages. |
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Super-Region Heads Awaiting Their Moment By Boris Kagarlitsky ABOUT six months ago, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree creating seven federal districts and named the men who would oversee them. Ever since, the nation has awaited the inevitable conflict between the new president and the old regional governors. |
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Leave the Lingo to the Experts, Blin! THE news that a group of lawmakers has decided to defend the Russian language proves one thing for sure: As the New Year approaches, the State Duma is going a little stir crazy. |
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LAST month's announcement of a feasibility study on the proposed oil pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Ceyhan on the Turkish Mediterranean coast created a wave of unwarranted optimism in Turkey. As major beneficiaries, the Turks hailed the news and exaggerated its significance by equating it with the first step toward actual construction. |
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Speech Impediment While Americans played presidential ping-pong this week, across the Atlantic the "world's oldest political party" was gearing up for a ballot battle next spring. |
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Gaza Bomb Kills 2 GAZA STRIP (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in front of a Jewish settlers' school bus in the largely Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip Monday, killing two adults and wounding nine others including children. Israel's security cabinet swiftly began an emergency meeting and the government and army vowed to respond to the first fatal bomb attack on settlers in Gaza in almost two months of clashes with Palestinians seeking independence. Medical relief workers said at least four children were among the wounded. The blast took the death toll to 243 in the clashes between Israeli troops and the Palestinians. Most of the dead have been Palestinians and one in four of them were teenagers. |
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 What little difference a year makes. In the 1999 Cup of Russia Grand Prix of Figure Skating event, Xue Shen and Zhao Hongbo of China performed a technically impressive free skate program, only to finish in second place behind the Russian pair of Maria Petrova and Alexei Tikhonov, who posted higher marks for presentation. |
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Indians Sign Burks CLEVELAND (AP) - Ellis Burks became the first free agent hitter to change teams this off season, agreeing with Cleveland on a three-year deal worth nearly $21 million. The deal could be announced as early as Monday, two sources close to the negotiations said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. |
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LONDON - Sedan and Hertha Berlin, the league leaders in France and Germany, both lost badly over the weekend but AS Roma and Manchester United stretched their leads at the top in Italy and England. |
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