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 Some say you can catch it by eating off the same plate as an infected person. Others say it can be transferred through sweat, being coughed on, or using the same towel as a sufferer. And as the numbers for HIV and AIDS cases in St. Petersburg rocket at a terrifying rate, it is precisely these kind of misconceptions, thanks to the paucity of public information, that are helping the spread of the syndrome, say experts. |
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 Officials have confirmed plans for a U.S.-backed nuclear fuel waste shipment from Taiwan to Russia three days before a bill that would overturn a ban on such imports to Russia is due to be debated in the Duma. |
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"Every day, we get between three and five new patients, men and women, who have HIV and who didn't know it," said Tatyana Penchuk, who works at the Botkina Infectious Diseases Hospital. Penchuk's job focuses on a particular section of the population. She is in charge of the hospital's maternity ward for HIV-positive mothers, the only one of its kind in St. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that U.S. and British airstrikes on Iraqi targets were "counter-productive" to efforts to resolve Baghdad's standoff with the West on weapons inspections, the Krem lin said. The Kremlin's press service said Putin had agreed, during a telephone conversation with French President Jacques Chirac, that the raids last Friday were "counter-productive for the process of a political settlement. |
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LONDON - Valery Ivasyuk, the doctor who helped to identify a headless body found in Ukrainian woods as almost certainly that of the crusading journalist Georgy Gongadze, has gone to ground in Britain in fear of his life. |
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NEW YORK - Former Kremlin aide Pavel Borodin, held in the United States on Swiss charges of money laundering, said in an interview published in the New York Times on Monday that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Speaking from the U.S. detention center in Brooklyn, New York, where he is awaiting a ruling on Geneva's extradition request, Borodin told the Times he would never have traveled abroad if he thought he was at risk of being arrested. |
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Editors Clipped ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Three local media heavyweights - one of whom is married to Gov. Gen. Viktor Cherkesov - were involved in a car accident and slightly injured on their way to Pulkovo airport Monday, Interfax reported. |
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MADRID, Spain - Vladimir Gusinsky said he would sell his stake in NTV television to foreign investors if its independence was guaranteed, a Spanish daily reported Sunday. "Provided that it is guaranteed 100 percent that a deal will never be reached with the Kremlin authorities that would call into question the independence of NTV or allow impositions, I would accept," he told ABC in an interview. Gusinsky remains under house arrest in Spain. Russian prosecutors have charged him with fraud, but Gusinsky says the case is an attempt to silence his Media-MOST group and he is fighting extradition to Russia. Gazprom-Media, which has 46 percent of NTV and has announced its plans to take full control of the station, said Friday it held talks in Moscow on Thursday with a Western consortium interested in buying a stake in NTV. |
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 MOSCOW - Firing from the land, sea and air, the military tested an array of missiles in a show of nuclear strength that came at a time of increasing tensions with the United States over its plans to build a national missile defense system. |
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 MOSCOW - Hundreds of truck drivers hauling wares into Moscow joined the thousands of trucks already stranded on the weekend as a 1 1/2-month crackdown on illegal imports appeared to be spiraling out of control. The Central Customs Department, which ordered the crackdown, said a decree promised last week to end the pileup would not be implemented as advertised. |
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MOSCOW - The State Duma's budget committee has approved a key plan to raise extra revenue this year to pay off part of Russia's massive foreign debt. The plan, which would raise the money needed to allow Russia to make payments on about $3. |
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MOSCOW - Russia has raised its attractiveness as a destination for foreign investments, rising from 49th position to 32nd in six months, according to a survey by management consultants A.T. Kearney. Russia failed to make it into Kearney's list of the top 25 most attractive countries for foreign investment, but Kearney analysts said that interest in Russia is rising in raw materials and many other sectors. |
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OMSK, Western Siberia - President Vla dimir Putin, keen to show he is tackling a protracted heating and electricity crisis, discussed utility rates with local people during visits to two Siberian cities this weekend. |
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MOSCOW - Europe has always had its suspicions about the state of Russia's environment, but now it's about to find out for sure. Tacis, the European Union's technical assistance program to the Commonwealth of Independent States, on Thursday unveiled plans to unify and coordinate ecological monitoring conducted by various government agencies. |
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MOSCOW - With a string of annual shareholder meetings looming in the coming months, the Investor Protection Association has drafted a list of directors it would like to see elected to the boards of nearly 60 companies. |
 Russia's Northwest Federal District, an area consisting of 11 regions from Novgorod in the west to the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the east on Russia's Arctic shores, may be set to become the country's next major oil producing region and reap huge profits. |
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MOSCOW - The government has announced it is moving to drastically revamp the municipal housing sector to avert a looming wave of power blackouts and water shortages. |
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Trading Enquiry MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine prosecutors Monday formally questioned 14 foreigners, 11 of them British, held by police since Friday on suspicion of illegal trading in U.S. stocks. Senior state prosecutor Archimedes Manabat of the Justice Department said he would officially submit his findings on Tuesday to the department's chief prosecutor, who will decide whether or not to file charges. "Yes," Manabat said when asked by reporters if he had found a prima facie case against the foreigners, who also include a Canadian, a Czech and an Italian. Saudis Talk Oil RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian negotiators held talks with oil giants ExxonMobile and BP Amoco Plc on Saturday on investment plans in the kingdom's gas sector. |
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 The name chosen for the economic conference that opened Thursday and ran through Saturday at Tavrichesky Palace was "Investment 2001 - New Realities in the Northwest Region. |
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PALERMO, Italy - The Group of Seven leading industrial nations over the weekend strongly urged Russia to meet its financial obligations in full, and France and Italy said Moscow had pledged to meet its debt payments. "We call upon the Russian authorities . |
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PARIS - France's Usinor, Luxembourg's Arbed SA and Spain's Aceralia announced a 3.4 billion euros ($3.11 billion) merger deal on Monday to create the world's largest steel firm, with estimated annual output of 46 million metric tons and sales of 30 billion euros ($27 billion). |
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CARACAS, Venezuela - OPEC Sec. Gen. Ali Rodriguez said on Monday there was "almost a conviction" in the oil exporting cartel to cut production ahead of a forecast drop in demand in the second quarter of the year. Speaking in a live radio interview from London, Rodriguez said the supply cut could be up to a million barrels per day (bpd) "in the worst-case scenario. |
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PALERMO, Italy - Europe's common currency should be cheered by a weekend Group of Seven meeting at which an influential forecast for U.S. growth was slashed and speculation over Washington's long-standing strong-dollar policy refused to die. |
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First Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shamalov estimates the lowering of oil export duties could cost the government 4 billion rubles ($1.4 million) in revenue per month. Moscow very well might try to compensate for this loss through other measures aimed at oil companies. |
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"What do Russians have against plastic cards?" was a question put to me recently by a British colleague of mine. We were discussing a story about the employees of one company who were unwilling to have salaries wired to bank accounts and to use debit cards to get their cash, rather than taking it home in an envelope. |
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ARBITRATION procedure is well known as one of the most common forms of business dispute resolution. It is preferred to litigation by businesses that feel a state court will not be impartial, fair, and efficient in resolving their disputes with another party. This is especially true for businesses that operate in a "hostile" environment, such as, for example, a foreign country. |
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TWO groups of researchers released the formal report of data for the human genome last Monday - on the birthday of Charles Darwin, who jump-started our biological understanding of life's nature and evolution when he published "The Origin of Species" in 1859. |
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THE New York Yankees announced a marketing alliance earlier this month with Manchester United, the English soccer club. The deal between two of the world's most valuable sports teams signals their desire to become truly global franchises, and their inability to do so on their own. |
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A MASTERPIECE of early 19th-century Russian literature was a play by Alexander Griboyedov called "Woe From Wit." The publication in an open letter by the so-called "trade union of oligarchs" last week made me wonder whether there isn't a contemporary Griboyedov capable of writing "Woe From Money. |
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THE news lately in the United States has been full of reports that the new Bush administration will take a tougher line in its relations with the Russian government. |
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DEFENSE Ministry officials insist they are already actively implementing a comprehensive military reform plan that will reduce the number of active servicemen while simultaneously improving troop quality. It has been reported that President Vladimir Putin has approved the reduction of about 365,000 servicemen and 120,000 civilian personnel from the Defense Ministry over the next three years. |
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Dear Gov. Vladimir Yakovlev! As you will be aware, the number of people in St. Petersburg infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is increasing rapidly. |
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Iraqis Protest Strikes BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq voiced defiance as it reported Western warplanes carrying out fresh patrols of its skies following last week's U.S. and British air strikes near Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad on Sunday against Friday's air raid, which Washington and London said targeted five Iraqi radar installations in an operation to protect their planes policing no-fly zones. Iraq said U.S. and British planes patrolled the south of the country on Sunday for the second time since the Western air attack. The first patrol was on Saturday within hours of the raid. In a striking reminder of the 1991 Gulf War, after which the no-fly zones were set up, the Israeli army announced joint exercises with the United States to fire Patriot missiles used a decade ago to try to intercept Iraqi Scud missiles that hit targets around Tel Aviv. |
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 In the world of international fashion, one name sticks out as a pioneer of Russian haute couture: Valentin Yudashkin. The first Russian designer to be accepted to the Paris Fashion Syndicate, the world's most prestigious fashion association, Yudashkin is a celebrity both at home and abroad. |
 It's February and you've just polished off that box of Valentine's Day chocolates - a perfect time to reflect on how those New Year's resolutions are (or aren't) shaping up. High on many peoples' lists is that ever-elusive goal to lose weight put on over the winter holidays, and St. |
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Far more successful days for the Soviet space program were Feb. 25, 1977, and 1979, when the Soyuz 24 returned to earth and Soyuz 34 was launched, respectively. |
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I was just a naive student from a well-off family when the idea of independent life first enticed me - so I left my parents and went to live with my boyfriend. With little money in our pockets, we could only afford to rent a room in a kommunalka, or communal flat. |
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While the exact amount being given to St. Petersburg from the Federal Budget in preparation for the city's 300th anniversary in 2003 is unclear, estimates range between 10 billion and 40 billion rubles ($357 million to $1. |
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The Russian equivalent of Shrove Tuesday, maslenitsa, dates back to pagan days and is something of a farewell to the long winter (although with the temperatures still freezing, it may seem a little premature.) While St. Petersburg is hardly New Orleans or Sydney, Russian pancakes or bliny are delicious and easy to make yourself, so drop by the supermarket and pick up the following ingredients to make delicious bliny at home: 3 eggs 3 tablespoons of sugar 1 teaspoon of salt 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda 3/4 liter (3 cups) of flour 1 teaspoon of vanilla 1/2 liter (2 cups) of milk oil for frying Mix the ingredients (except the oil) together in a bowl and beat with a fork. |
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 LONDON - AS Roma bounced back from its stunning 2-0 home defeat by Liverpool in the UEFA Cup in midweek with victory over Lecce to stay on top of Italy's Serie A. |
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Sheffield Wants Trade VERO BEACH, Florida (AP) - The Los Angeles Dodgers, faced with Gary Sheffield's demand for either a new contract or a trade, are trying to deal the six-time All-Star. "We will do what's in the best interest of the Los Angeles Dodgers," general manager Kevin Malone said Monday at the team's training camp. |
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Western foods can sometimes be difficult to find in local shops and markets in St. Petersburg. The four stores below are well-known for their selection of hard-to-find foods, as well as their steep prices. |
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Monday's ruble/dollar rates in St. Petersburg: Bank Address Buy Sell PetroAeroBank 54 Nevsky Prospect 28.62 28.84 Impexbank 58 Nevsky Prospect 28.30 29.00 RusRegion Bank 54 Nevsky Prospect 28.60 28.90 Promstroi Bank 4 Mikhailovskaya Ul. 28.20 28.85 BaltunEximBank Grand Hotel Europe 27.35 29.00 Sberbank Dumskaya Ul. |
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