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 Two of St. Petersburg's best-loved residents set off on the 49-hour trip to Australia on Tuesday. Packed up into crates, Lyutik and Lia, the polar bear cubs born last December at the Leningrad Zoo, flew off to their new home at Sea World in the town of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. |
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MOSCOW - Less than two years in office, President Vladimir Putin has managed to finish the job started by his predecessor a decade ago: to push through a major revamp of the country's Soviet-era judicial system, long plagued by procedural violations, political intrigues and corruption. |
All photos from issue.
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 MOSCOW -A two-day Kremlin-sponsored Civic Forum wrapped up Thursday with high expectations from the thousands of civic activists present that steps were being made to open up a dialogue with the government. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, speaking at the closing session in the Kremlin, said the government was ready to welcome "any ideas, maybe even the most astonishing ones," Interfax reported. |
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In 1996, as young conscripts were dying in Chechnya, then-President Boris Yeltsin ordered an end to the country's system of compulsary military service. |
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Power to the People ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Voters should be allowed to decide whether regional governors should be elected to third terms, Governor Vladimir Yakov lev said, according to an Interfax report. The governor made the statement during his weekly "Governor's Time" television show on Tuesday, the news agency reported. |
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MOSCOW - Investigators on Wednesday examined the flight recorders of a chartered turboprop that crashed with 27 people on board en route to Moscow from the northern Siberian town of Khatanga but said they were not ready to say what caused the accident. |
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MOSCOW - What speaks louder in Afg hanistan - weapons or money? The answer could be key in deciding whether Russia, which has been arming the opposition for years, or the United States, with hundreds of millions of dollars to offer, will have a stronger sway over the allegiances of the new Afghan government. |
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MOSCOW -The country's oil barons nonchalantly backed Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko on Thursday as he ended weeks of confrontation with the world's biggest crude producers by saying Russia was ready to cut exports to stabilize prices. Khristenko's announcement that Russia would cut enough to trigger a much larger OPEC cut also calmed the budget panic the government has been in since oil prices went into a free fall last week, dropping several dollars below the $18. |
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MOSCOW - The deputy head of the country's largest aluminum company called on the government Thursday to help companies move their capital abroad. In order to compete with international giants, companies such as RusAl, Gazprom and LUKoil must develop into transnational businesses, and to do so they need agencies along the lines of the U. |
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The Legislative Assembly passed a city budget for 2002 on its third and final reading Wed nesday with a projected surplus of 1.1 billion rubles ($36 million). Thirty-five legislators voted for and one against a budget forecasting total revenues for the city next year of 57. |
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MOSCOW - Forget oil, the largest investor in the country says the best business bet in Russia is ... beer. The EBRD, set up in 1991 by the Group of Seven industrialized countries to ease eastern Europe's transition to a market economy, said Wednesday that of all the industries it has invested in, its favorite is brewing. |
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Crossing Borders ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Baltika brewery, Russia's biggest beer producer, has decided to increase its activities ouside Russia, the company's general director Taimuraz Bolloyev said at a Thursday press conference, Interfax reported. According to the news agency, Bolloyev said the company is looking to the Chinese beer market as well as finishing off the upgrading of the Krinitsa brewery in Belarus. |
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Bonus Bounced? BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentina denied on Thursday it would postpone $1 billion in year-end public-sector bonuses, but analysts said the cuts could be necessary if the country is to honor key deficit targets. |
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IT is fashionable to say that the suicide bombing of New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 has profoundly changed the world. All press comment has been based on this assumption, with appropriately "deep" analyses of its effects on international relations, the world economy, globalization and so on. |
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WASHINGTON - Life has long been cheap in Afghanistan. Life expectancy is 46 years, every fourth toddler dies and millions this summer were already dependent on UN food. |
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IT would seem to be a pretty good rule of thumb that if the international business press and financiers of the world's major institutions start referring to a country as a success story - or, God forbid, an "economic miracle" - then that country should only expect problems in the future. |
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AS U.S. forces geared up to enter Somalia in 1992, urgent word arrived at the Defense Language Institute that the military needed speakers of Somali. At the institute, America's foremost language-teaching facility, "We put out an all-points bulletin: Does anyone know this language?" recalls Paul Bannes, who teaches Russian there. |
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 Olga Borodina's contract with the Mariinsky Theater stipulates only three local performances per year, so each appearance is necessarily an event. The world famous mezzo-soprano with the deep, velvety voice divides her time among the musical capitals of the world. |
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A Triptych from the Russian Theater is an artistic biography of a remarkable theatrical dynasty whose influence on opera and drama was felt not only in Russia, but on stages around the world. |
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Pakistan's Sabri Brothers, who played locally on Sunday, proved to be a great success, selling out the venue with an estimated 300 more people unabel to get tickets and heading home disappointed. However, they shouldn't despair too much, since we have the chance to hear another star of global music - Armenia's Djivan Gasparyan - who will play two concerts in the city over the weekend. Gasparyan is con sidered one of Armenia's greatest musicians, a living legend. He is the foremost virtuoso of the duduk, an oboe-like instrument dating back to Armenia's pre-Christian times that is made of apricot wood and capable of sustaining droning notes for long periods of time. |
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 St. Petersburg, of course, is justifiably proud that in 2003 it will be celebrating its 300th birthday. Although 300 is certainly a distinguished age and much of importance has happened here over the last three centuries, we shouldn't overlook the fact that most of our neighbors are considerably more venerable. |
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La Femme de Rose Hill (The Woman Of Rose Hill) (1989, Switzerland - France). A young woman from Rose Hill, Mauritius, arrives in rural Switzerland to marry her pen-pal, Marcel, who is much older. Directed by Alain Tanner. 7 p.m. Fri., Nov. 23, 3 p.m. Sat., Nov. 24. Who's Next? (1999, Switzerland) Peasant Max might have stayed in his lonely Alpine pasture forever, but an American puts the idea in his head that with the help of an edelweiss flower he could have any woman he liked. |
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Roy Staying Home DENVER, Colorado (AP) - Patrick Roy , the winningest goalie in NHL history, stunned the hockey world on Wednesday night by bowing out of the Salt Lake City Olympics. The 36-year-old Canadian, who plays for the Colorado Avalanche, cited rest as the main reason to sit out the games. |
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