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MOSCOW - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has announced that Berlin may be willing to trade some of Russia's billions of dollars in debts in return for shares in "the most worthy" Russian corporations. Schroeder made the surprise announcement over the weekend just after receiving Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. The idea apparently originated in Moscow. It's possible that Schroeder was not very happy about it: At a news conference Friday, the German chancellor looked like "a person who had overindulged in lemons," according to the Kommersant daily. The newspaper added that after Kasyanov explained to journalists that Schroeder had "understood that he will never get" a full repayment for Soviet-era debts, Schroeder blurted out a bitter "Ja, ja!" As of Monday, there were still almost no details of how - or whether - Mos cow's Soviet-era debts of about $22 billion to Germany could be exchanged for stakes in Russian blue-chip corporations. |
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 It used to be that sewing sheets or making boxes was the sort of low-level labor given to those assigned to Soviet-era mental institutions. And while the connotations of having their babies swaddled in sheets sewn by mental patients may be unusual for some new mothers, it is just this idea that occurred to the Caledonia Club, a Scottish-supported charity, to solve some of the many shortages at St. |
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MOSCOW - Investigators with the Audit Chamber say that federal money intended to rebuild Chechnya has been embezzled and top officials in the Finance Ministry and Economic Development and Trade Ministry have played a part. "We are sending materials to the Prosecutor General's Office and there are concrete officials there, officials of the Finance Ministry and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry," said Audit Chamber head Ser gei Stepashin. |
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The City Prosecutor's Office embezzlement probe and an examination of the financial dealings of the St. Petersburg city administration for the fiscal year 1995-96 has been officially closed without findings, officials said Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Human rights ombudsman Oleg Mi ro nov has often been the target of human rights activists, who accuse him of being soft on the government. But now he is under attack from some of his own staff for the opposite. In a letter to President Vladimir Putin, 10 employees of the ombudsman's office accused Mironov of "discrediting the new leadership" and taking money from "dubious foreign organizations" financed by the CIA. |
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MOSCOW - An unlikely tandem was forged Thursday as the cash-strapped Sak harov Museum accepted a $3 million grant from Boris Berezovsky, who has been living in self-imposed exile abroad after fleeing a criminal investigation he has called "politically motivated. |
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MOSCOW - A long-simmering debate over the country's outdated Labor Code is coming to a head as the government prepares to push its version through the State Duma this month, much to the chagrin of the labor movement. |
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Official Survives Blast ST. PETERSBURG (Reuters) - A senior Russian city official and his daughter were injured on Monday when their car exploded in St. Petersburg, an Emergencies Ministry spokes man said. The spokesman said by telephone the explosion went off early on Monday when Sergei Alyoshin, deputy administration head of one of St. |
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MOSCOW - Voters opted for continuity in weekend regional elections throughout the country, with incumbents and other senior officials winning or leading in most contests. |
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MOSCOW - Russian authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for exiled media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky, the chief prosecutor's office said on Monday. Gusinsky, owner of Russia's largest independent country-wide media group, Media-MOST, is charged with fraud. He remains abroad and failed to turn up for questioning by a prosecutor last month. |
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 JOHANNESBURG - Delegates from more than 120 countries began a week of talks in South Africa on Monday to devise a global treaty that conservationists hope will ban production of some of the world's most dangerous chemicals. The talks, under the auspices of the UN Environment Program, are the fifth round of global discussions on POPs and are expected to produce a treaty to be signed at a diplomatic conference scheduled for Stockholm next May. |
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Candy giant Krasny Oktyabr is being sued for 4 million rubles ($143,087) by a woman who claims that the company improperly used her likeness on its Alyonka chocolate bars. |
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NEW YORK - The bears have come to Wall Street - at least in high-tech form - and investors are not counting on Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to play Santa Claus this year and deliver the traditional Christmas rally. The NASDAQ composite index, already littered with deflated Internet and high-tech stocks, lost 23 percent in November, its most dismal monthly performance in 13 years. |
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NAIROBI - French and Kenyan scientists have unearthed fossilised remains of mankind's earliest known ancestor that predate previous discoveries by more than 1 1/2 million years, the team announced on Monday. |
 MOSCOW - The All-Russia Automobile Alliance, or AVVA, held an extraordinary shareholders meeting on Friday and changed its charter in what appears to be a step toward taking full control of the nation's largest car maker, AvtoVAZ. AVVA was an investment fund founded in 1993 by Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Voloshin, who is now President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff. |
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MOSCOW - After a marathon debate that lasted for more than 11 hours Friday, the State Duma passed the draft 2001 budget on a third reading. The lower house of parliament, which had to consider more than 5,000 proposed amendments, voted 279 to 87 with three abstentions to approve the 1. |
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MOSCOW - In a year when it weathered months of litigation, accusations of judicial manipulations, a police raid, an Audit Chamber investigation and the wrath of the U.S. State Department, Tyumen Oil Co. has been named the best oil and gas firm in the world. |
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MOSCOW - A fourth Smirnov vodka brand will enter the market this week and will almost certainly join the already complicated legal battles raging between its three rivals. |
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NEW YORK - PepsiCo Inc. (PEP.N) on Monday said that it will buy Quaker Oats Co. (OAT.N) in a $13.4 billion stock deal that will give the world's No. 2 beverage company ownership of Quaker's Gatorade, the crown jewel of sports drinks. This deal will also end more than a month of speculation over who might acquire Quaker. |
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International rating agency Fitch has raised St. Petersburg's long-term foreign currency rating from CCC to CCC+, according to a report on Fitch's Web site posted last week. |
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Market Steadies as Buyers Await New Developments MOSCOW - Local shares ended slightly easier Monday amid uncertainty about the market's trend through the end of the year and financial turbulence in Turkey, traders said. The key RTS index closed off a tiny 0.09 percent at 141.58 on thin volume of $14.2 million. The Reuters Russian composite eased 0.38 percent to 1,057.06. Michael Stein, a salesman at United Financial Group, said a fresh slide in Turkish equities was pressuring the local market. "While Russia remains firmly planted on the radar screens of most [Europe, Middle East and Africa] investor groups and hedge funds, Russian equities are poised to take a back seat to developments in Turkey and the U. |
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 Russia's North supplies the country with much of its wealth. But unfortunately, many of its settlements are impoverished and dangerously undersupplied during the severe winter months. |
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BUSINESS AND THE LAW When Work Permits Are Required for Foreigners According to current Russian legislation, it is illegal for foreign nationals to work in Russia without a work permit. Presidential decree No. 2146 of Dec. 16, 1993, approved the regulation "On the Hiring and Use of Foreign Labor in the Russian Federation," which requires foreign nationals who are working in Russia to obtain work permits authorizing them to work in Russia. The decree also requires most categories of employers, including both Russian and foreign legal entities, to obtain the authorization of the Russian Migration Service for the hiring of foreign nationals. |
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 Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin is regarded as one of the few highly placed officials President Vladimir Putin will talk to on virtually any occasion with respect to any question. |
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MOSCOW - After last week's auction that set new benchmark interest rates on the money market, the Central Bank raised interest rates on commercial banks' deposits by 0.5 to 2 percentage points. By doing so, the Central Bank clearly showed its preference for a strong ruble, which traders did not expect to dip below 28 rubles to the dollar by year-end even without intervention by the bank. |
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Media Unions Are a Tool for Press Control RUSSIAN media associations have been big news lately. Last week, television star and businessman Alexander Lyubimov announced the creation of a new organization called Mediasoyuz (Media-Union), which would unite all media professionals throughout Russia. |
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Debt for Equity Deal a Smokescreen IN November 1999, The St. Petersburg Times broke the news that Moscow had a strong legal case to win about $12 billion - $12 billion! - in debt relief. |
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THE leaders of Russia and Belarus have once again announced the impending creation of a unified currency between the two countries. Such announcements have become so frequent over the last few years that you almost get the impression that somewhere there is a group of bureaucrats who - in order to relax after a hard day's work - spend their evenings drafting unification fantasies. |
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Invisible Republic The secret government has shown its face at last. And what a strange, multi-headed beast it is. On one stout neck we see the snarling visage of an angry "protester" banging on the doors of election commission offices, his pockets stuffed with campaign cash from Austin, Texas. |
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WITH a joint Russian-American crew now setting up shop on the new International Space Station, it seems fitting to look back at another landmark of space cooperation - the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz docking mission - which took place exactly 25 years ago this summer. That mission, although far from the most impressive space flight in terms of its results, really did mark a transition from international competition to international cooperation in space. |
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Fox To Meet Rebels GUADALAJARA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican President Vicente Fox vowed on Sunday to meet the conditions laid out by armed Zapatista rebels from Chiapas to reopen a dialogue on peace, winding down the final leg of a three-day inaugural bonanza. |
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JERUSALEM - Israeli helicopters fired two missiles at Palestinian gunmen near a refugee camp in Bethlehem early on Monday during a heavy night-time clash, one of several that undermined hopes of ending two months of violence. |
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Favre Ties Marino CHICAGO (AP) - Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre on Sunday night reached 3,000 yards passing for a ninth straight season, tying the NFL record set by Dan Marino from 1984 to 92. Favre needed 107 yards entering the game to reach 3,000. He passed the mark with a 33-yard completion to Bill Schroeder in the second quarter. Suspicious Death PASADENA, California (AP) - Chris Antley, whose struggles with weight, drugs and alcohol dogged a riding career that included victory in the 1999 Kentucky Derby with Charis matic, was found dead at home in an apparent homicide. Police said Sunday that the 34-year-old jockey was pronounced dead at the scene with "severe trauma to the head. |
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 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court set back Democrat Al Gore's efforts to overtake Republican George W. Bush in Florida on Monday, putting aside a Florida legal decision that allowed the vice president to cut Bush's lead from 930 to 537 votes. |
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Issues Archive