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A St. Petersburg pensioner is claiming damages of $71,500 from local cigarette producer Petro, in the first law suit against a tobacco company to be heard in a Russian court. Ivan Prokopenko, represented by the city-based law firm OSV, is demanding compensation for the cancer which resulted in the removal of one of his lungs. |
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VLADIVOSTOK, Far East - What do the following people have in common: a cleaning lady worried that her son might be drafted, a former gynecologist who sells newspapers and plays an accordion on commuter trains, a retired admiral and several unemployed people? All are running for governor in the embattled Primorye region. |
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MOSCOW - A Moscow court on Monday threw embattled media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky a lifeline in his fight to keep his NTV television channel free of Kremlin control. A district court barred an NTV shareholders meeting called by state-dominated gas monopoly Gazprom, which has 46 percent of the station's shares. |
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NEW YORK - A former Kremlin aide who has been held in a New York jail for more than two months on Swiss money-laundering charges told a U.S. judge on Monday he was willing to be extradited to Switzerland. |
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Mobile-Phone Ban MOSCOW (SPT) - Anyone using a mobile phone while driving must be sure it is equipped with a hands-free device as of Sunday, Interfax reported. Violators can be stopped by traffic police and charged a fine of 20 rubles (about 70 cents). |
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MOSCOW - Opinion polls show that President Vladimir Putin enjoys the support of about 75 percent of Russians. But the love is not blind: A year after his election, people have greater doubts about Chechnya, the lack of a clear economic policy and the president's ability to raise their standard of living. |
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MOSCOW - Having reshuffled the top brass at the defense and interior ministries, President Vladimir Putin is moving to set up an investigative powerhouse with broad powers that will answer directly to the Kremlin and a military police force, ministry sources familiar with the plans said Monday. |
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MOSCOW - New Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Saturday that he backed a "balanced" army, where the country's nuclear shield was maintained but conventional forces were reformed and improved. |
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MOSCOW - The army, which says it backs plans to abolish the dreaded draft, kicked off on Sunday the spring draft to conscript nearly 200,000 young men. The hard part will be persuading them to show up. Vladislav Putilin, a deputy chief of staff, said Friday that a manpower crisis means Russia must still draft conscripts despite planned military reforms to slash the armed forces by one fifth, or 470,000. Putilin said just 12 percent of young men of conscript age would likely serve their two years in uniform. On Friday, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree calling up 189,995 men. Ill-health and exemptions made the draft ever smaller, the three-star general told a news conference. |
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 MOSCOW - Police arrested 669 people after riots broke out before and during Saturday's derby between fierce city rivals Spartak and CSKA. A police statement on Monday said 63 fans and three police were hurt, both in clashes before the match and during the riot that broke out when Spartak scored the only goal of the match at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin told Lithuanian leader Valdas Adamkus that he backed European Union expansion, but reiterated opposition to the extension of NATO, which the Baltic state also wants to join. Putin, who welcomed Adamkus on Friday, also proposed that Lithuania, Russia and the EU hold talks together on Kaliningrad, the enclave on the Baltic Sea that will be surrounded by EU states once Lithuania and Poland join the bloc. |
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MOSCOW - On Monday, President Vla dimir Putin put the finishing touches on an annual speech to parliament in which he is expected to outline his ideas for reforming Russia's economy and overhauling key institutions. |
 Russian aviation companies are facing the loss of access to European airspace and their most lucrative market unless they install new safety and noise-reduction equipment in their aircraft. But the cost of installing the equipment, as required by Eurocontrol and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), means companies will have to pay millions of dollars to update their fleets. |
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MOSCOW - A top Russian military official said on Monday that a mid-air collision between a U.S. reconnaissance plane and a Chinese jet was no surprise to Moscow, which detects hundreds of NATO spy flights along its borders. |
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MOSCOW - General Motors apparently inserted a clause in its new $340 million joint-venture contract with AvtoVAZ that gives the giant U.S. automaker the right to take complete control of the deal if there are any changes in AvtoVAZ's ownership structure. |
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MOSCOW - The Russian government has moved toward closing a legal hole that arguably could have allowed input value-added tax on construction costs to be recovered for work carried out before Jan. |
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MOSCOW - A group of minority shareholders in state-owned savings bank Sberbank, protesting plans for a new share issue, said that they had filed a lawsuit Monday in a Moscow court challenging the bank's refusal to hold an EGM. "After reviewing the decision of the supervisory board and determining that grounds for the rejection of the EGM request were groundless . |
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MOSCOW - While the government has yet to announce its plan to consolidate the aviation industry, a copy of the Science and Technology Ministry plan under consideration, obtained by Vedomosti, calls for the establishment of a holding company for state enterprises that will enjoy the full backing of the state. |
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MOSCOW - Gazprom sold to Itera for $300 its controlling stake in a private Siberian gas company with reserves worth $9 billion after allowing that company to go bankrupt, according to a series of internal documents obtained by The St. Petersburg Times. The documents refute Itera's assertion that it rose from obscurity to become the world's No. 7 gas company in less than a decade without receiving preferential treatment from Gazprom. As part of an aggressive PR campaign to improve its murky image and tap capital markets, the president of the Florida-registered Itera gave a rare interview last week in which he told Reuters that his company had "never participated in any asset transfer schemes [with Gazprom]. |
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 MOSCOW - The year was 1961, and the city was Surgut. Of course, with only a few thousand residents at the time, Surgut - in the heart of the Tyumen region in western Siberia - couldn't really be called a "city. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin told visiting World Trade Organization director general Michael Moore on Friday that Russia was committed to joining the WTO, but not at any price. "We are not asking for, nor are we counting on any privileges. We ask for a standard approach while acceding to the WTO," Putin told Moore in remarks broadcast on ORT television. |
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Rostelecom Bond MOSCOW (SPT) - Rostelecom's leasing arm, RTC-Leasing, intends to raise 500 million rubles ($17.4 million) through a bond placement, company representatives said Friday, Prime-Tass reported. |
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If an oil field can grow into a legend, like Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, then Kashagan, located in the remote shallows of the Caspian Sea, will surely become one. Christopher Pala reports. ATYRAU, Kazakhstan - Kashagan could variously go down in history as the field that freed Kazakhstan from Moscow's orbit, that delivered the fatal blow to an ecologically ailing Caspian or showcased Western know-how in the face of a challenging environment. Or it could become one of the most over-hyped fizzles in the history of an industry not known for its restraint. Though remarkably little is known about the field, oilmen involved in probing it insist there is a high probability that, together with other smaller offshore fields nearby, it will produce 2 million barrels a day within 15 years. |
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 When Andrew Somers took over as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia (AmCham) last year, he brought with him extensive experience in dealing with business issues in Russia. |
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"Please show me the contents of your bag." Not, as you might think, a question from an airport customs official, but a request I recently received from the sumptuously decorated entrance hall of a large local bank. The security guards before me were intelligent enough: Rather than searching my bag themselves, they asked me to pull out what was inside - which, as it happens, comprised a mobile phone, lipstick, notepad and pen, and a set of keys. |
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U.S. Indicator Positive NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. manufacturing sector, mired in a steep eight-month downturn, showed some tentative signs of recovery on Monday as a closely watched index of industrial activity rose for a second straight month in March. |
 FRANKFURT, Germany - Allianz AG sought but failed on Monday to calm concerns that it may have overpaid in a 23.4 billion euro ($20.6 billion) takeover for Dresdner Bank AG, which it said would unlock the burgeoning market for retirement savings. Shares in both Allianz and Dresdner fell as analysts voiced doubts about the merits of the deal, hailed by the companies' chairmen as the key to further consolidation of Germany's overcrowded financial sector. |
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WHEN President Vladimir Putin delivered his first state-of-the-nation address last July, he emphasized the need to strengthen the federal government. "Power should rely on the law and on a single vertical line of executive power," he said. On Tuesday Putin will come before the nation once again. |
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AS soon as I read about the USS Greeneville sinking the Japa ne se fishing boat Ehime Maru, killing nine people, I knew what was in store for the sub's crew. |
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AMONG the most cost-effective defense dollars that America spends are those that pay for reducing Russia's arsenal of leftover Cold-War weapons. The Bush administration began a review of these "threat-reduction" programs last week, saying that it had the intention of making them more efficient. |
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"IF you're free, come and support us!" was the slogan for Saturday's public rally in defense of NTV. I wasn't free, so I didn't go. However, I hope it's not too late to show some support. |
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PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin's decision to fire Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov is a significant event and an encouraging sign for those who are concerned about fostering an appropriate international climate to ensure the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and dual-use technologies. |
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DESPITE the secrecy surrounding the current decision-making processes in the Kremlin, last week's cabinet reshuffling sheds some light on what the policy of President Vla dimir Putin will be over the next few years. |
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 Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series on how to deal with various legal institutions in Russia. Next week, the procedure once placed under arrest is investigated. We all live according to some set of laws, and try to observe them even more carefully while in an unfamiliar country. |
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St. Petersburg is still without a Starbucks, although it probably won't be long. Meanwhile the local equivalent seems to be Idealnaya Chashka, which has outlets throughout the center. |
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Monday's ruble/dollar rates in St. Petersburg: Address Buy Sell Alfa Bank 6 Kanal Griboyedova 28.00 28.80 Avto Bank 119 Moskovsky Prospect 28.20 28.80 Baltiisky Bank 34 Sadovaya Ul. 28.50 29.24 Bank Sankt Peterburg 10 Mokhovaya Ul. |
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The Finland Station got PR to die for when it became immortalized in Soviet lore as the place of Lenin's arrival back from self-imposed exile on April 3, 1917. |
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For some, a time machine is a fantasy, but for me it is a reality - as history seems to be repeating itself alarmingly. On my first visit to provincial Russia, a young boy of about 12 followed me for half a kilometer because, like most provincial Russian children in the 1980s, he did not believe that black men really existed on Earth. |
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With diplomatic expulsions on both sides of the Atlantic and talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the United States, what do local residents think of the action taken and the future for U. |
 Founded by Russians building a railroad across the northern tip of China, Harbin once boasted the largest population of Russians living abroad. But after suffering the ravages of war, occupation, and the Cultural Revolution, only a handful of Russians now remain. |
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PALERMO, Sicily - In the past, the Mafia tried to influence elections with unequivocal messages, such as a calf's head left on a doorstep in the night. |
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Bus Crash Kills 14 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Two buses collided on a bridge along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast and plunged into a rain-swollen river, killing at least 14 people and injuring 28, police and hospital officials said Monday. Dozens of people remained missing. |
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MIAMI - Memories of the most chilling moment in the history of tennis will be reawakened next week when world No. 1 Martina Hingis takes the stand in the trial of a man accused of stalking her. |
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SAO PAULO, Brazil - McLaren's David Coulthard snapped world champion Michael Schumacher's run of six successive victories Sunday when he won a thrilling Brazilian Grand Prix. The Briton's first win since the French Grand Prix in July, ahead of second-placed Schumacher and Nick Heidfeld in a Sauber, will be remembered most for the unveiling of a stunning Formula One talent - Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, who displayed daring driving in challenging the leaders throughout the race. |
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DULUTH, Georgia - Marathon man Scott McCarron sliced open a finger before slicing up the field to win the $3.3 million BellSouth Classic by three strokes on Sunday. |
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Student Unrest WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (AP) - Students lighted fires around the Purdue campus Sunday night after the Boilermakers lost to Notre Dame in the NCAA women's basketball championship in St. Louis. No injuries were reported, and Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said five people had been arrested. State police used tear gas to break up crowds of students who also threw rocks and launched bottle rockets at officers, a state police spokeswoman told WRTV in Indianapolis. Nomar Faces Surgery BOSTON (AP) - Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra might spend opening day in an operating room. Garciaparra, who has a split tendon in his wrist that sidelined him for much of spring training, was scheduled to undergo surgery Monday at the UMass Medical Center, the Boston Herald reported. |
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 With the world becoming more and more cosmopolitan, and performing arts schools in classical music, opera and ballet becoming ever more competitive, it takes courage for a young performer to be original. |
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