LOCAL NEWS

PUTIN PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR U.S. 'WAR'

YEREVAN, Armenia - Russia said on Saturday that it opposed the indiscriminate use of force to punish perpetrators of terror after the U.S. Congress authorized strikes against those responsible for last week's attack on the United States.

President Vladimir Putin, who has pledged Moscow's support to Washington in efforts to root out "international terrorism," said on a trip to Armenia that Moscow wanted a thorough investigation to precede any military action.

"The evil must be punished," Putin told a news conference. "But we should not liken ourselves to bandits who strike from behind. We must weigh up our decisions and make them on the basis of proven facts.

FORGOTTEN PHILANTHROPIST AWAITS RECOGNITION

IVANGOROD, Leningrad Oblast - The steps leading down to the crypt of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church are crooked and broken. The walls are nearly bare, with just flecks of paint here and there.

117 Russians Missing in U.S.

One hundred seventeen Russians were listed Sunday as missing following the terrorist attacks in the United States last week, according to the Web site of the Russian Embassy in Washington.

The embassy is compiling the list at the Web site www.russianembassy.org in response to worried family and friends who are bombarding the embassy with telephone calls after failing to contact loved ones believed to have been in the vicinity of the World Trade Center or Pen tagon at the time of the attacks.

NATIONAL NEWS

MOSCOW MARKS BOMBING ANNIVERSARY

MOSCOW - The mourning following the deadly terrorist assault on the United States coincided with the second anniversary of the most devastating in a series of apartment blasts that rocked Russia in 1999, killing some 300 people.

Starting before dawn on Sept.

IN BRIEF

Putin in Armenia

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that Russia could act as a guarantor of a peace deal for the disputed Na gor no-Karabakh enclave, but insisted that Mos cow was not meddling in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

LOCAL BUSINESS

SURPLUS NOT EXPECTED TO PROVIDE BIG PAYOUT

MOSCOW - Russia is expecting a grain harvest of 78 million tons in 2001 - a 19 percent increase over last year - which would give Russia a surplus of at least 5 million tons, as well as the possibility to export, the government says.

Production had totaled 67 million tons by September, according to the Agriculture Ministry. Half of this will be produced in the main grain-producing regions in the south: Rostov, Stavropol and Krasnodar, said Yury Gnatovsky, an analyst with the OGO food producer.

The grain crop totaled 65.4 million tons in 2000, when exports passed 1 million tons. About 8 million tons remain from last year's harvest.

Grain production has bounced back considerably since 1998's crop of 47.

OMZ MAKES MOVE TO GAAP ACCOUNTS

MOSCOW - United Heavy Machinery, or OMZ, on Friday released GAAP results showing sales of $241 million and a net profit of $340,000 in 2000, becoming the country's first machine-building company to publish U.

RUSSIAN MARKETS 'SENSITIVE' TO DEVELOPMENTS IN U.S.

MOSCOW - Stocks regained most of earlier losses Monday after the U.S. Federal reserve decided to cut interest rates to close down about 1 percent on lukewarm demand.

But traders warned that any fallout from the reopening of the New York Stock Exchange for the first time since last Tuesday's terrorist attacks would be felt in full Tuesday.

UNCERTAINTY HANGS OVER LUKOIL'S LICENSES

MOSCOW - The Natural Resources Ministry on Friday delayed a decision on determining the fate of some LUKoil oil field licenses in the Timan-Pechora Region.

IN BRIEF

TNK Stops Bond

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Oil producer Tyumen Oil Co., or TNK, said Monday it would postpone a $300 million to $500 million Eurobond to 2002 from this year, but would continue borrowing domestically.

"We won't hurry with Eurobonds this year," Vice President Oleg Surkov told a news conference.

OPINION

AN ANTI-TERRORISM PLAN

THE suicide bombers who drew us into a frightening new war last week were Muslims with a horribly twisted version of Islam. They obviously hated us.

President George W. Bush declared that the terrorists - said to be minions of the radical Islamic militant and Saudi Arabian fugitive Osama bin Laden - had presented the United States with "an opportunity to do generations a favor, by coming together and whipping terrorism; hunting it down .

CITY-OBLAST MERGER CAN BENEFIT BOTH

GOVERNOR Vladimir Yakovlev's recent call for a referendum on uniting the city and Leningrad Oblast into a single subject of the federation is a sensible step, although perhaps a bit premature.

IT SMELLS LIKE A WHOLE NEW WORLD TO ME

FRIENDS from Europe and the United States often tell me that Russia smells differently compared to the rest of the civilized world. They say that the scent of garlic and other, to put it gently, non-aromatic smells assault their nostrils almost as soon as they find themselves within Russia's borders.

CHRIS FLOYD'S GLOBAL EYE

Perhaps their knives were made of stone - chipped flints, sharpened to a deadly point: the earliest human technology. Perhaps that's how their weapons were smuggled past the sleek security machines, scanning for metal, for iron and steel.

The U.S. Sends Thanks for Russia's Support

Over the last week, The St. Petersburg Times has received more than 100 letters of gratitude from Americans across the United States and around the world. Here are just a few of them.

Editor,

I am an American citizen who, like so many others here in the United States, has been horrified and saddened by this week's events.

WORLD

WORLD WATCH

Gadhafi Warns U.S.

SOLLOUG, Libya (Reuters) - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi warned the United States on Sunday it could fall into a Soviet-style quagmire in Afghanistan if it retaliated there for devastating terror attacks on New York and Washington.

Gadhafi, who has often assailed Washington for its policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, said the United States had the right to respond militarily to the unprecedented attacks in which thousands are feared to have died.