|
|
|
|
MOSCOW - When they close their drawers, pack their documents, and wash their coffee mugs on their way out of the State Duma this week, most of the deputies will probably feel they are starting a well-deserved vacation. They will be leaving behind them an exceptionally long and productive spring session intended, in the words of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, to "turn Russia into a different country. |
|
As the spring session of the State Duma came to a close over the weekend, local deputies expressed their frustration at having to pass bills too quickly without proper legislative input. |
|
They may have been bitter political enemies in the past, but Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu seemed the best of friends Thursday, exchanging sweet gifts as they formalized the alliance of their two political movements - the centrist Fatherland and pro-Kremlin Unity. |
|
MOSCOW - At least 10 Chechen civilians were injured by federal troops who went on a rampage as they carried out security sweeps of villages looking for rebel fighters, a prosecutor said. |
All photos from issue.
|
|
|
|
 Following a broadcast on the local NTV "Segodnya Sankt-Peterburg" news program on Friday, the wires hummed with some shocking news. Independent Duma Deputy Konstantin Sevenard's seemingly far-fetched notion that buried tsarist-era treasure lies hidden under the former estate of the famous balerina Matilda Kshesinskaya - which now houses the Russian Museum of Political History - was proven true. |
|
MOSCOW - Berezovsky, a man who likes to brag that he helped bring President Vladimir Putin to power, has predicted Russia will have a new president by year's end. |
|
MOSCOW - In the second air disaster in as many weeks, a cargo plane crashed Saturday shortly after takeoff from the Chkalovsky military airport near Moscow, killing all 10 people on board. The four-engine IL-76TD flown by Rus, a private airline, was bound for the Arctic city of Norilsk with 40 tons of construction materials. |
|
MOSCOW - Nazi-era slave laborers living in Russia should begin to receive payments from a 10 billion Deutsche mark ($437 million) German fund this month after an agreement between the Russian Foundation for Mutual Understanding and Reconciliation and state savings Sberbank was signed this week. |
|
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Defense Department shot down a mock warhead over the Pacific Ocean late on Saturday in a successful test of a controversial anti-ballistic missile defense. "The kill-intercept was confirmed by all our sensors," Air Force Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, head of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, told a news briefing. |
|
ALMATY, Kazakhstan - U.S. officials are expressing quiet satisfaction after an enormous stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium, located in a sensitive zone in Kazakhstan, was made theft-proof in what the U. |
|
MOSCOW - Salvagers kicked off an $80 million, two-month operation to raise the Kursk nuclear submarine on Monday by sending an underwater robot to the bottom of the Barents Sea to measure radiation levels around the sunken vessel. The Norwegian ship Mayo, carrying a team of Russian and Norwegian divers and salvaging equipment, arrived at the Kursk site off the Arctic Kola Peninsula on Sunday. |
|
MOSCOW - Russia and China revived their strategic friendship on Monday, throwing down a challenge to America's domination of the post Cold War world and its controversial plans for a missile-defense shield. |
|
Anonymous Tips Stay MOSCOW (AP) - The Supreme Court confirmed late last week that the Federal Security Service was entitled to consider anonymous reports on prospective and actual crimes and their perpetrators, the court's press service said. The court considered an appeal from the For Human Rights movement, which argued that the practice smacked of Soviet secret-police methods and could lead to abuse. |
|
|
|
|
MOSCOW - The World Bank signed an agreement with Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko for an $80 million loan to move unemployed workers from northern regions - but Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov promptly put the deal on ice. The loan is aimed at relocating 20,000 people from 8,000 households in Vorkuta in the Komi Republic, the Susuman District in the Magadan Region and the city of Norilsk - remote areas that were settled by the Soviet-era gulag system and large-scale industrial projects. |
|
Baltika, the country's largest brewery, plans to invest about $360 million building six new breweries in the former Soviet Union, Adam Tlekhurai, vice president of Baltika, said Monday. |
|
MOSCOW - With extraordinarily heavy-handed lobbying, the government succeeded in winning the State Duma's approval Saturday for a new Land Code that allows Russians and foreigners to buy and sell commercial and residential land. Duma deputies passed the controversial code after an exhausting, 11-hour second reading on the final day of their extended spring session. |
|
MOSCOW - Auditors could be obliged to divulge clients' commercial secrets under a draft law making its way through the State Duma. The new law on auditor activity, which the Duma approved in its second reading last Wednesday, would in some cases require auditors to hand over a client's financial documents to tax police or investigating bodies. |
|
MOSCOW - The State Duma passed in the first reading Friday a package of pension-reform bills aiming to keep the pension system from going broke as well as boosting payouts to retirees. The bills, which deal with state pensions, labor pensions and compulsory pension insurance, were approved despite strong opposition from Communists. More than 100 people protested the legislation outside the Duma. The three bills attempt to avert a looming cash crunch by replacing state-guaranteed pensions of about $35 a month with a combination of a state pension - funded by a flat-rate tax - and flexible privately financed pensions. Under the current pay-as-you-go system, tax money paid into the State Pension Fund is pooled and redistributed almost immediately as pensions. |
|
 After Gazprom became the owner of a 65 percent stake in NTV, having wrested a 19 percent stake from Media-MOST through the courts, it proceeded - on April 3 - to change the station's managment. |
|
MOSCOW - Canada's prime minister consulted top government officials over the weekend on the scandal brewing around Tyumen Oil Co. and a Canadian oil company, setting the stage for high-level intervention in the dispute. President Vladimir Putin hosted Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Friday, and Chretien met with Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov on Saturday. |
|
Budgetary Woes MOSCOW (Reuters) - The government faces defeat in parliament on its 2002 budget draft unless it is overhauled to allow for greater expenditures, the chairman of the State Duma Budget Committee said Monday. |
|
IT seems that the local hotel market is about to lose one of its three international operators. If negotiations presently underway bear fruit, Malta-based Corinthia Hotels International will take over ownership of the Nevskij Palace Hotel, and Sheraton Hotels and Resorts will lose its present role managing the property. |
|
MUCH has already been written about land reform in Russia. But it continues to be one of the country's most controversial concerns. Historically, land questions have been at the center of Russian political and legal debates. |
|
IN 1916, Lenin wrote "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism." In it, he describes imperialism as a capitalist monopoly that arose "when certain of capitalism's fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape. |
|
EC Questions Plan BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Commission said Monday it is considering opening a formal probe into the Belgian government's 100 million euro ($85 million) contribution to a rescue plan for flag carrier Sabena to see if it violates competition rules on state aid. |
|
|
|
|
< |
|
BACK when I was a schoolgirl, I read in a paper about affluent Parisians preferring to commute from the suburbs rather than live in Paris. I remember how surprised I was. |
|
WHEN you look back on the latest session of the State Duma, which takes off for its summer vacation this week, it is hard not to be impressed by the quantity and the range of the bills adopted. From taxes, the Land Code, and the Labor Code to legal reform and money laundering, the Duma weighed in on a stunning array of crucially important issues. |
|
I visited Kazakhstan last month and had a chance to catch a glimpse of what may become of Russia in a few years. I have seen "managed democracy," that nebulous concept that Russian politicians have been discussing ever since Vladimir Putin became president. |
|
IT can be difficult when your country's leader pursues views and policies that are considerably different from yours - as America's Democrats are discovering under the administration of George Bush. Things can be really tough when the leader represents the views of a decided minority, as was the case with Chile under Augusto Pinochet. |
|
After much debate, deliberation and fancy PR footwork, Beijing has been designated the host city for the 2008 Summer Games. Opponents of the IOC's choice of venue cite China's abysmal human rights record, while supporters of the bid say selecting China will subject it to international scrutiny and force it to grant broader freedoms. |
|
|
|
 Cheers of Davai! (Come on!) rang out from the crowds of smiling young faces Friday afternoon, as Renart made a valiant attempt to complete one last pull-up. Although the children, who spend all except a few short summer months at St. Petersburg's children's homes Nos. 14, 40 and 31, are always happy to be in the great outdoors, today was a special day. On Friday, at one summer camp in the Leningrad Oblast town of Ushkovo, located about 70 kilometers northwest of the city, these city kids were treated to a day of athletic competition, with prizes provided by the St. |
|
 It is a monument to the enthusiasm and energy to change society that characterized the years after the 1917 October Revolution, as well as to the determination and suffering of Leningraders in the 900-day siege during World War II. |
|
'Canes Sign Top Pick RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) - The Carolina Hurricanes signed Igor Knyazev, the club's top draft pick, to a three-year deal Sunday. Knyazev, an 18-year-old defenseman, was chosen 15th in the first round of last month's NHL entry draft. He said he would return to his native Russia to play for Division I Spartak if he didn't sign by Sunday. |
Temp: 0°C overcast 
Issues Archive