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MOSCOW - U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia has test launched a new jet-powered ballistic missile intended to outwit the United States' planned system of defense against long-range missiles, The Washington Times reported Monday. The report cited unnamed officials as saying that the launch of a refashioned road-mobile SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missile, known as the Topol, took place "from a launch site in central Russia two weeks ago." The missile reportedly landed on the far eastern Kamchatka peninsula. The officials said the launch caught their attention because of the missile's unusual trajectory: The last stage flew within the Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 30 kilometers - unlike the standard path of missiles, which tend to fly at higher altitudes. |
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 An elbow to the gut. A shove from behind. A jab in the kidneys. A stomp to the toes. Public transportation in St. Petersburg has never promised much beyond wonderfully low fares. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - All federal government agencies must create their own Internet sites by the end of the year and should update them every day, Alexei Volin, deputy head of the government's staff, said Thursday. If the Web sites are not updated daily, it will be concluded that the ministries or agencies have done nothing that day, Volin said in a telephone interview. |
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Petra Prochazkova, a former Czech journalist who runs two orphanages in Grozny, cannot get her visa to get back into Russia. She is not the only one. Several foreigners connected with nongovernmental organizations - some active in Chechnya, others concerned with protecting the environment or promoting democracy - have been denied Russian visas in the past year or so. |
 Just 120 kilometers northeast of St. Petersburg, the historic city of Vyborg is one of the treasures of the Leningrad Oblast. The Swedes began construction of a castle there in 1293, and the medieval fortress still dominates the old town. Vyborg became part of Russia in the early 18th century when it was captured by Peter the Great. After the 1917 Revolution, Vyborg was part of Finland, until the territory was recaptured during the Winter War in 1939. |
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 Ten local residents who were among the protesters at the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, earlier this month complained that media coverage of the event was overwhelmingly negative and misrepresented the aims of the anti-globalism movement. |
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MOSCOW - The Federal Security Service has drafted a plan that would give it enormous powers to control the national economy, two weekly newspapers reported. The FSB, however, called the reports a "provocation." Analysts said the plan was unrealistic and "rubbish. |
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Reporter Crackdown MOSCOW (Reuters) - The army clamped down on reporters in Chechnya on Thursday for reporting too much bad news from the region and said it was setting up an alternative military broadcasting studio, NTV television reported. |
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The city's Investment Tender Commission has given the initial go-ahead for territory on a military airfield in the suburb of Pushkin to be converted into a private airport, but the new facility's chances for success are still up in the air. The development plan calls for the Ministry of Defense to hand over 48 hectares of land at the airport, which presently serves as a base for Russia's Sixth Air Army, to a private firm, Pushkin Airport. |
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Leningrad Optical-Mechanical Corporation (LOMO) is sticking with politics. The firm, which manufactures a range of products including telescopes, devices for night vision and medical equipment such as microscopes and endoscopes, is aiming at supplying the Central Elections Commission (TsIK) with 30,000 vote-counting machines. |
 MOSCOW - Russia signed military and other agreements with Guinea on Friday, reaffirming bonds with former Soviet allies in West Africa. Guinean President Lansana Conte and President Vladimir Putin signed a wide-ranging declaration of friendship and partnership, covering issues from arms to aluminum. Guinea, which is fighting Sierra Leonean and Liberian rebels along its southern border, is shopping for weapons, especially after an explosion destroyed a major stockpile of arms in March. |
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 Russian e-commerce is experiencing hard times. Internet projects have found it almost impossible to make a profit, and a large number have stalled or shut down altogether. |
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MOSCOW - A PricewaterhouseCoopers audit of Gazprom's relations with Itera has presented directors at the gas monopoly with a difficult question: Should Purgaz, which currently accounts for three-quarters of Itera's gas extraction, be returned to Gazprom? The question is slated for discussion at Gazprom's next board meeting, scheduled for Tuesday. |
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GECC Buy STAMFORD, Connecticut (AP) - General Electric Capital Corp. is buying the commercial finance company Heller Financial Inc. for $5.3 billion in cash. |
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It's taken a while, but it seems that a nightmare for St. Petersburg firms is beginning to come true. The number of Moscow firms and interests coming north to compete in this market is picking up as big players in a number of different sectors are expanding their operations into the region. |
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When you buy a refrigerator, the salespeople, if they are good at their jobs, will tell you just how long the particular model in question will retain the cold if the power goes off. |
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A new chapter in the U.S.-Russian relationship opened last week as a senior team of Bush administration officials had two days of talks in Moscow aimed at cementing our economic ties for the long term. To further our relationship, as President George W. |
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World-Class Act In response to "Number's Up for the Ruler of the Mariinsky," a column by Barnaby Thompson, July 20. Editor, If you compare the state of the Mariinsky opera and ballet companies to that of the Bolshoi, the reason there is a supremacy in St. |
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SIX months into the new U.S. administration, it appears that the objective of the president's foreign policy team is nothing less than a foundational shift in the way the United States protects its security. Without defining its terms, administration officials - with support from advisers like Henry Kissinger - have urged the president to replace existing rules of international peace and security with a new strategic framework single-handedly. |
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NO doubt the "10th-Anniversary Story" will be a popular genre in the months ahead. The first volleys have already come across the wires in the form of articles devoted to the July 1, 1991, Kremlin meeting at which the Warsaw Pact was buried. |
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RUSSIANS are fond of the quip that journalism is the world's second-oldest profession. They enjoy making fun of the idea that it is possible to buy a journalistic point of view just as it is possible to buy various services late at night under the street lamps on Staro-Nevsky Prospect. |
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I have been waiting for a long time now to see exactly when the ill effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union would really begin to make themselves felt. |
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HERE'S an interesting Kremlin tactic: If an undesirable candidate has a chance to win election in a region where a presidential envoy is based, call the media and threaten, anonymously, to move the envoy to another region. That's what happened this week. Interfax quoted an anonymous source in the presidential administration as saying that it could yank presidential envoy Sergei Kiriyenko out of Nizhny Novgorod if Communist candidate Gennady Khodyrev beats out incumbent Governor Ivan Sklyarov in Sunday's runoff. |
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 Rick Macy, a pillar of St. Petersburg's expatriate and business community, has fallen victim to an all-too-familiar fate: the seemingly inevitable bump up the corporate ladder to Moscow. As the commercial director of the telecommunications firm Peterstar and as chairman of the executive committee of the local branch of the American Chamber of Commerce, Macy has reached the top in St. Petersburg, apparently signaling to the corporate gods that he has outgrown the cultural capital. |
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 All too often, it seems, the animals that put their lives and dignity on the line for the sake of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge are quickly forgotten by history. |
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Death of Gierek WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Edward Gierek, the Communist ruler who pushed for reform during the 1970s but was forced from power over mounting debt and strikes, has died. He was 88. Gierek became Communist Party chief in 1970, promising openness to the West and internal reform. He launched a program to modernize outdated Polish industry. |
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