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 DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine - Russian President Vladimir Putin met embattled Ukrainian counterpart Leo nid Kuchma on Monday but kept his eyes firmly on trade and energy issues rather than a political scandal sweeping Ukraine. The timing of the visit - after weeks of street protests calling for Kuch ma to resign - led some commentators to describe Putin's trip as a show of support by former colonial master Russia for weak and impoverished Ukraine's leader. |
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 MOSCOW - The squat figure of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov peeped out of the Zil truck as he drove the last 500 meters of a remarkable journey that had lasted four months and covered 24,075 kilometers. |
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MOSCOW - Mad cow disease, which is causing panic in Western Europe, poses no threat to the Russian meat industry and could prove to be a blessing in disguise, Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Dankvert said. Fears about the contaminated meat have led Russia to ban most imports from Europe which, in turn, is providing a boost for the domestic beef industry, Dankvert said in a telephone interview. |
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VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - Top officials in Primorye quit en masse on Monday over an energy crisis which has already cost the region's governor his job. A source in the Primorye administration said that 11 of the territory's 12 deputy governors had tendered their resignations after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin's regional envoy Vladimir Pulikovsky. |
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CIA Bewilders Russia MOSCOW (AP) - The Foreign Ministry expressed astonishment Friday over CIA director George Tenet's description of Russia as a security threat and his allegations that President Vla dimir Putin is trying to return the country to its Soviet past. Tenet last week painted a gloomy picture of Putin's Russia, saying there was little doubt that the Kremlin wanted "to restore some aspects of the Soviet past." The Foreign Ministry in a two-page statement said one couldn't expect a balanced assessment from the CIA, considering its Cold-War past. "But, in spite of this, a series of statements by George Tenet are astonishing, to put it mildly," it said. |
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 KIEV - After her husband's disappearance last fall catalyzed one of Uk rai ne's biggest political scandals of the past decade, Myroslava Gongadze found herself thrust into the spotlight as "the widow of a hero. |
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TALLINN, Estonia - Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said on Sunday her weekend meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled the beginning of improved relations between the two countries. "This is the first step to be taken on the road to continuing to improve bilateral relations between Latvia and Russia," Vike-Freiberga told a news conference at Riga Airport after meeting Putin in Innsbruck, Austria, on Saturday. |
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Four of seven men who were detained by police in connection with the arrest of prominent local businessman and Russian Jewish Congress vice president Mikhail Mirilashvili were released without charges Saturday, authorities said. |
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Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev has floated the idea of lowering Russian visa prices for Scandinavian citizens in an effort to draw more of them to St. Petersburg. Although the ultimate authority for such decisions rests with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Yakovlev's spokesperson, Alexander Afanasiyev, said the governor floated the notion as a trial balloon during a press conference on Thursday to generate interest in the idea. |
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Huge protests broke out on Sunday in the city's southeastern Nevsky district after a small group of Azeris was allegedly assaulted by a gang of what appeared to be Russian nationalists on Saturday night, officials at the Azerbaijan Consulate said. |
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ALMATY, Kazakstan - The long battle to manage the world's biggest oil field development project ended Monday when members of an international consortium drilling Kazakstan's Kashagan field announced that they have elected Agip of Italy as single operator. |
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LONDON - State-owned oil major Rosneft finalized a deal Saturday to sell a 20 percent stake in the giant Sakhalin-1 development project off the Pacific coast to India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp. |
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'No Devaluation Ahead' MOSCOW (SPT) - The government does not intend to devalue the ruble below the exchange rate of 30 rubles against the dollar, Prime-Tass quoted a source in the Finance Ministry as saying Monday. The government's goal in 2001 is the conservation of the ruble's nominal exchange rate "with the possibility of its slight devaluation," he stressed. |
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The state of the Internet market in St. Petersburg, and in Russia in general, is a classic case of "good news/bad news." On the one hand, the number of people with access to and regularly using using the Internet is growing steadily. |
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MOSCOW - The Internet has been one of the last frontiers unconquered by Russia's galling government regulations, but that may soon change. During its spring session, the State Duma is gearing up to consider as many as 15 bills to regulate the Internet, said a Duma official. "We need to manage our online relationships," said Yury Travkin, a consultant to the Duma's commission on information policy, in a telephone interview. "It is important for Russia to regulate its Internet if it wants to be serious about entering into the WTO [World Trade Organization]." While Travkin declined to list all the pending bills because committees are still massaging the drafts into shape, he said the package will most likely contain provisions banning commercial spam, or junk e-mail, protecting intellectual property, preventing copyright infringement, securing online payments and addressing the legitimacy of digital signatures. |
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 For Russians and foreigners alike, one of the major impediments to getting online is the simple fact that they don't own computers, or own computers without modems. |
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St. Petersburg offers a number of centrally located "Internet cafes" (or "clubs") offering various prices and services. Be aware, though, that the addition of the word "cafe" does not always mean food - or even a cup of coffee - will be available. |
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ST. Petersburg took its most ambitious project for many a year to Moscow last week, presenting the plans for the city's 300th anniversary in the hope of obtaining money from the government for things like new hotels and residential buildings, as well as such hopeless mammoth projects like the Ring Road. |
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RUSSIA'S law on sales tax has been the source of ongoing controversy since it came into effect in 1998. Despite the fact that it is confusing and ambiguous and was recently declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, the same Constitutional Court went on to rule that, for the time being at least, we're stuck with it. |
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Hi-Tech Buy LONDON (Reuters) - Schlumberger Ltd. said on Monday it had agreed to buy Sema Plc for $5.2 billion in cash, hoping the absorption of the troubled Anglo-French IT company will boost its technology credentials. |
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NEW YORK - Shares of high-speed data-storage network equipment maker Emulex Corp. fell more than 48 percent on Monday, and unlike the August hoax that trimmed $2.5 billion from the company's stock market value, this time the bad news behind the fall was real. Late Friday afternoon, Costa Mesa, California-based Emulex said some customers were deferring orders and, should those deferrals continue, it would not meet Wall Street's revenue and earnings forecasts for its fiscal third quarter. |
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THE recent major problems in the Russian power sector raise once again the question to what extent market opening could help solve them. In a number of Western countries, electricity market liberalization has often been a solution for a non-problem; in Russia it would mostly be a non-solution for a much-too-real problem. |
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A FORTNIGHT ago, Security Council Secretary Sergei Ivanov surprised an international security conference in Munich, Germany, with an uncompromising speech denouncing Western plans to further expand NATO, as well as the American intention to deploy a national missile defense. |
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MORE and more people are beginning to understand, albeit very slowly, what is happening in our country. People are beginning to understand that we have sham freedom of speech, which really only allows us to systematically praise the bosses. People see that we have sham independence of the judicial system, which continues to heed the commands of its superiors. |
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FIRST, let me write that I welcome Peter Ekman's addition to the debate surrounding Media-MOST and NTV in his comment entitled "Mismanaging NTV" published in The St. |
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GOV. Vladimir Yakovlev was in Moscow last week for the presentation of St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebrations, which will begin in less than two years' time. While 2003 represents the best opportunity the city will have for a long time to raise its profile, attract more tourists and clean up its act in general, St. |
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I NOTICED a fantastic quotation from a "source in a major oil company" in a recent issue of Vedomosti. "[Former Energy Minister Alexander] Gavrin turned his ministry into a real bazaar. |
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Quake Toll Assessed BHUJ, India (AP) - As the shock of India's Jan. 26 quake begins to fade, the people of Bhuj have started to count the costs. There, more than 15,700 bodies have been collected, the government said Sunday. More than 18,000 people are confirmed dead from the 7.7-magnitude quake on Jan. 26, though unofficial estimates put the death toll at around 30,000. Fresh tremors shook parts of Gujarat state early Sunday, but there were no reported injuries. The government said 250,000 people still needed shelter. In Anjar and the other worst-hit towns, Bhachau and Bhuj, administrators were still waiting for word from the state government whether or not the towns will be rebuilt - or if homes will be built in new sites. |
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 MOSCOW - Dennis Tito is the first to admit he's no test pilot. At 60, slight and balding, he hardly resembles the cowboys of Tom Wolfe fame who rocketed into orbit during the great space race between Cold War superpowers. |
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JERUSALEM - Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank Monday as Israel's right-wing Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon sought to forge a unity government. Sharon's right-wing Likud party was due to hold new talks with the center-left Labor party to try to forge a broad coalition in attempt to contain the violence. But the latest killings underlined the challenges facing Sharon, who won a crushing victory over outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak in elections last Tuesday. Soldiers killed Ziad Abu Sway when they opened fire on a bus carrying Pa les tinian laborers near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Palestinian witnesses and hospital sources said. |
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 Finding and marrying one's soul-mate in Russia, regardless of the culture you have come from, is certainly an exhilarating experience. It involves the integration of different worlds, the evapration of borders, and the occasional birth of odd pidgin languages and culinary compromises. |
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Valentine's Day in history has very little in the spirit of roses and chocolates to recommend it. Indeed, St. Valentine himself was beaten to death with clubs and then rather superfluously beheaded on 14 Feb, 269. Roman priest Valentine married couples in secret, despite a temporary ban on marriage imposed by Claudius The Cruel. One night, the renegade pastor was caught mid-nuptial and the rest is, as they say, history. Other suitably barbaric events on Valentine's day include the Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago on 14 Feb, 1929. Dubbed "the most spectacular mob hit in gangland history" by crime buffs, the hit polished off five enemies of Al Capone, but missed his arch-foil, Bugs Moran. |
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 Maria-Luisa Ciccone Vermirial de Estaflor, otherwise known as Volodya, is perhaps St. Petersburg's most famous transvestite. Presenting her idiosyncratic show at the city's oldest surviving gay club, Jungle, for over two years, Maria is finally leaving to launch her solo career. |
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Just as I was beginning to wonder last week why my old friends the police were ignoring me, they stopped me again to give me their usual interrogation. Confronted with their habitual command, "Show us your documents!" I guessed that my passport bearing a stamp proving my legal residency would suffice. |
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Looking for some Valentine's Day clubbing? Dance the night away with your sweetheart at any of a number of V-Day parties scheduled for Wednesday: Check out the all-night Valentine's Day party at Faculty, featuring bands Solnechny Udar (pop/rock), Ackee Wa-Wa (reggae) and DJ Nadezhda (disco). |
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Lewis vs. Tyson? LONDON (Reuters) - World heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis could meet Mike Tyson on July 21, Lewiss business manager Adrian Ogun said on Sunday. "We are ready to start negotiations for a summer fight," Ogun told BBC Radio, "July 21 is the date that we are looking for. |
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Spain's last-place club Racing Santander pulled off the shock of the soccer weekend in Europe when it hammered third place Barcelona 4-0 in the Spanish first division. |
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BUFFALO, New York - The Montreal Canadiens have had little reason for hope when trailing a game after two periods this season. Patrick Poulin supplied that hope on Sunday. Poulin scored twice in a 3:50 span of the third period to rally the Canadiens to a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. "It was a big win for us," said Poulin, who scored his 100th NHL goal with 8:36 remaining to forge a 3-3 tie and beat Dominik Hasek for the game-winner with 4:46 left to give Montreal its second win in as many nights. |
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