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MOSCOW - A bill with the power to wipe out the majority of the country's political parties and put the remaining few under close government scrutiny was passed by the State Duma in the second and crucial reading Thursday. Amendments to the bill made it even more rigid than the harshly criticized draft submitted by President Vladimir Putin and approved in a first reading this winter. Deputies considered 1,600 amendments in Thursday's session, which stretched late into the evening. According to the bill, which passed 261 to 56, only an organization registered as a "political party" will have the right to participate in elections on any level - from regional to federal. |
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 This weekend, it finally happens: Governor Vladimir Yakovlev loses his job. And one of his ties. Sunday, May 27, is City Day, the annual celebration of St. |
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Russia outraged environmentalists worldwide on Wednesday by refusing to sign the International Treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Stockholm, Sweden, which environmentalists and governments have been working toward for more than two years. The move represented a backtrack from Russia's stated position in December, when it said it would sign the treaty. |
All photos from issue.
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Governor Vladimir Yakovlev is trying to pressure the resignation of Economics Committee chairman Vice Governor Anatoly Alexashin over what sources describe as the committee's history of slipshod work and shady financial dealings. Plans to jettison Aleksashin, however, have been thwarted by the fact that he has been on official sick leave -according to Economics Committee spokesperson Tatyana Otyugova - since May 4 in a Moscow hospital with an as yet unexplained illness. Under Russian law, that means Aleksashin is guaranteed his paycheck for four months, if he remains on sick leave. At the end of four months, he can be legally fired. A City Hall source close to the events said Yakovlev's reinvigorated push to shunt Aleksashin out of his administration began with the appearance in late April of an Audit Chamber report indicating a myriad of questionable transactions with a number of research organizations commissioned to conduct economic studies. |
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 The Danish Agency for Protection of the Environment this week allocated $1 million to fund the completion of sewage facilities at the beleaguered Kras ny Bor toxic waste dump. |
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All but two of the 20 detainees and prisoners who broke free from two remand jails in the Leningrad Oblast on Monday have been recaptured, police said on Thursday. Those caught include all six men who escaped from the remand prison of the regional police station in Volosovo, southwest of St. |
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MOSCOW - In a move to take the country off an international money-laundering blacklist, the State Duma gave tentative approval Thursday to a bill to create an agency to monitor financial transactions. |
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The Union of Right Forces, the largest liberal political organization in the country, will transform itself into a full-fledged political party at its congress on Saturday. But the step, which could potentially strengthen the liberals, has met opposition from several prominent members of the Union of Right Forces, or SPS. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed reports in two German magazines that the United States and Germany had agreed to withhold financial aid to Russia, calling them a "provocation" aimed at destroying Russia's relations with EU countries. |
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YAKUTSK, Eastern Siberia - Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in flood-stricken eastern Siberia on Thursday to assure residents that the government's main priority was to start aid and reconstruction work as soon as possible. Putin also said he was prepared to sign a decree authorizing the state's sale of gold and high-quality diamonds from the mineral-rich Yakutia region to help people who had suffered losses, Russian news agencies reported. The floods that have swept the region over the last week have forced more than 17,000 people from their homes into rescue centers and tent camps, but water levels are now dropping. "As a result of today's meeting, instructions will be given to the government . |
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 MOSCOW - NTV general director Boris Jordan visited Washington on a U.S. road trip to assure Americans that press freedoms are not under fire in Russia and that the takeover of NTV television by state-dominated gas giant Gazprom was not politically motivated. |
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Fake Drugs on Rise ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Russia has officially registered ten times more cases of falsification of medicines than in 1998, said Interfax on Monday, citing a report made at a press conference by Robert Rosen, executive director of the Association of International Pharmaceutic Manufacturers, or AIPM. |
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 With the nature of reforms to the nation's electric power monopoly, Unified Energy Systems (UES), still uncertain, the board at local energy utility Lenenergo passed most of its agenda at an annual shareholders meeting held Thursday. At a meeting chaired by Leonid Melamed, first deputy chair at UES, Lenenergo General Director Andrei Likhachyov called last year a "turning point" in the company's history. |
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Leningrad Metal Factory (LMZ), which has been struggling to avoid bankruptcy for the last two years, has announced that it has managed to pay off about 97 percent of what had been a 511 million ruble (about $17. |
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MOSCOW - Russia's largest advertising agencies showed strong profit growth last year after a rough post-crisis 1999, according to the latest ratings by Advertising Age, the world's leading ad magazine. In 2000, the agencies BBDO, D'Arcy and Navigator DDB each increased their profits between 15 percent and 20 percent, while ADV Group's profits surged 165 percent and TBWA's tripled. |
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Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov returned from a six-day trip to the United States bearing news of one new investment project, new money for a number of existing projects and the continuation of close cooperation with the state of Maryland. |
 Mobile TeleSystems President Mikhail Smirnov was in St. Petersburg Tuesday for a press conference to unveil the company's plans for constructing and developing a cellular-service network through its subsidiary, Telecom XXI. Staff writer Andrey Musatov talked to Smirnov about the company's success in getting access to the city's market and its plans for developing its business here. |
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Mikhail Smirnov, president of Moscow's largest cellular phone-service provider, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), made a whirlwind, four-hour visit to St. Petersburg on Tuesday to officially announce Telecom XXI's status as an MTS daughter company. |
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Dear Editor, I just finished my first trip to St. Petersburg on May 7, and it will not be my last. I was incredibly impressed by this city. Russia is the best-kept secret in the travel industry. I think that this may be due to the problems with getting visas. |
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WHAT can they be thinking? Castro has parlayed 42 years of hostility and intervention from Washington into an unshakable lifelong hold on power in Cuba. |
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IN a political climate where the Kremlin has the overwhelming support of the State Duma, and with legislation being introduced that will limit the number of parties in the country, it doesn't seem an auspicious time to form a viable opposition. Yet the disbanding of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and the realignment of its former constituent parts into a party, as opposed to a coalition, is at least aimed at creating a united democratic movement. |
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WHEN a pigmy stumbles on his way out the door of his hut in the morning, it is said that he turns around and spends the day at home, hiding from the evil fate that awaits him. |
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THE West bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days because of Ko so vo. For the last two years we have been pumping money into this benighted province by the millions; thousands of soldiers are stationed there. But we are still wondering: What are we to do with Kosovo? Suddenly, we know the answer. |
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Runaway Train Astute readers of the Global Eye will recall last month's report on those puckish charmers of Italy's Northern League, led by Umberto Bossi. |
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Proclaiming to be the first Czech restaurant in St. Petersburg, U Rudolfa II sounded to be the perfect place to introduce myself to some Czech culinary delights, being a total novice to Czech cuisine myself. Situated at 126/2 Nevsky Prospect, this restaurant is the perfect place to go for medieval fanatics. There are knight's suits of armor dotted all over the place, with one even strategically positioned at the top of the stairs to greet you on arrival. Add to this all sorts of weaponry hanging from the walls, including swords, halberds and maces, and one could be forgiven for thinking that you've accidentally found yourself in a dungeon - a very friendly one at that. |
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 The "Russian Britpop band" Multfilmy has signed to Real Records - the label largely responsible for "new Russian" guitar-based pop/rock, as heard on the "Brat 2" soundtrack series - and is now busy recording a follow-up to their eponymously named debut from last year. |
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Most people have little interest in the personal problems of the people around them. But Italian sculptor Giuliano Vangi confronts us with the sufferings of others, externalizing them and giving them physical form. This avalanche of hidden feelings is now on display for all to see at an exhibition of Vangi's works occupying five halls at the State Hermitage Museum. |
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You live in a beautiful city, say Italians when they come to St. Petersburg. It is a triumph of Italian architecture, they add, if you meet them abroad. |
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The Jamaican ska veterans who virtually invented the style in the early 1960s are bringing their act to the city on Sunday, with two Moscow dates to follow. Before The Skatalites were nominated for a Gram my Award in the category of Best Reggae Album in 1996 and 1997, they had a long and turbulent history of splits, reunions and deaths of musicians. |
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Student club Faculty - sporting some recent remodelling including airbrushed wall murals - is still going strong after spending the past few months doing what any true student club should do: trying to find itself. |
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Airplane Shot Down KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel (Reuters) - Israel's air force shot down a light civilian plane from Lebanon on Thursday, the anniversary of Israel's pullout from the Arab state, after the pilot failed to heed warnings that he was over Israel. |
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Coach of the Year PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Larry Brown, the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, was named the NBA's coach of the year on Wednesday. Brown, who led the Sixers to their best record in 16 years, won the award for the first time in his 18-year NBA coaching career. |
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