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More than half of the deputies in the Le ningrad Oblast Legislative Assembly were re-elected in voting on Sunday, in a development that analysts see as a defeat for Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and a victory for Leningrad Oblast Governor Valery Serdyukov. |
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MOSCOW - Against a backdrop of high drama in the leadup to presidential elections this Sunday in Sakha Republic, polls held over the weekend in three Russian republics and seven regions passed almost unnoticed. |
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MOSCOW - Former President Boris Yeltsin made a flying visit to Berlin for a heart checkup over the weekend and is expected to be back in Moscow on Tuesday after getting a clean bill of health. The abrupt trip once again cast the spotlight on health of the former president, whose series of heart attacks in the mid-1990s and fragile health since then have kept tongues wagging in Russia. Barbara Nickolaus, spokesperson for the Rudolf Virchow Clinic, where Yeltsin was examined, said the visit was to make a five-year checkup of Yeltsin's heart after his quintuple bypass operation in 1996. "It showed that everything is still in order," Nickolaus said by telephone from Berlin. |
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 MOSCOW - The Union of Right Forces, or SPS, a political faction formed last year by nine liberal groups that often haven't seen eye to eye, projected an image of increased unity and conservatism as its delegates gathered for a congress Friday. |
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MOSCOW - With just a month to go before shareholders are to be asked to start the liquidation of TV6 television, station owner Boris Berezovsky made a last-ditch effort Monday to keep the channel alive by offering his 75 percent as a gift to TV6 journalists. |
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Yakovlev Lashes Out ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Governor Vladimir Yakovlev views the recent criminal investigations of Vice Governor Valery Malyshev and former acting Vice Governor Alexander Po tek hin as attempts to "create a negative image of the governor," according to an interview published Monday in Kommersant. |
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MOSCOW - Following the successful launch of futures trading on two indexes, new investment instruments are expected soon on the local stock market, along with the country's first index funds. The Russian Trading System launched trading of futures contracts on RUIX and RUIX-oil on Dec. |
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MOSCOW - Alrosa, which mines 20 percent of the world's diamonds, clinched a five-year, $4-billion trade agreement with international behemoth De Beers on Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Gazprom's board voted to buy back a 32-percent stake in the Purgaz gas producer from Itera, a decision that appears to be the first concrete step made by the new management showing its commitment to change the natural gas monopolist. "We were given one small Christmas gift from Gazprom with this Purgaz solution," said Boris Fyodorov, a Gaz prom board member who represents the interests of minority investors and a fierce critic of the previous management, whom he claimed engaged in asset-stripping. |
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MOSCOW - Financial holding AFK Sistema is considering launching a corporate bond or even floating shares in its real-estate arm, Sistema-Gals, Sistema vice president Levan Vasadze said last week. |
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Pension Laws Signed MOSCOW (SPT) - President Vla di mir Putin has signed into law three landmark pension-reform bills, Prime-Tass reported the the Kremlin press service as saying Monday. The bills include the law on labor pensions, the law on state pensions and the law on mandatory pension insurance. |
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LONDON - As markets waited nervously, OPEC officials on Monday mulled whether Norway's promise to reduce oil output by 150,000 barrels per day was enough to justify the cartel's proceeding with a 6-percent cut in its own crude production. |
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Raising Hopes LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch/Shell on Monday paved the way for the extra oil and gas output growth its investors want by relaxing self-imposed financial constraints on project viability. In an annual strategy review that shifted its ambitions clearly toward the raw materials end of the energy industry, the giant Anglo-Dutch energy company said it would in future measure its underlying performance against a long-term crude price assumption of $16 a barrel for Brent blend, up from $14 previously. |
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With interest rates at their lowest level fn 40 years in the West, Russian banks are struggling to compete with their foreign counterparts in the lending market. |
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Editor, After World War II, the United States of America helped to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure and economies of the defeated countries of Europe and Japan. Since then, our government and the people of the United States of America have been very generous in helping other countries and peoples. |
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CALL it Daisy-Cutter Diplomacy. The "daisy-cutter" bomb, as we've learned recently, is a huge, 6,775-kilogram explosive that the United States has been dropping in the Afghanistan mountains to destroy the caves and bunkers in which Osama bin Laden's forces have been trying to hide. |
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THE other night I was in a car with a group of Russian businesspeople driving from Tallinn to Narva. All of these men have business interests in Estonia, and I was surprised to hear their attitudes toward doing business there. Listening to them was like sitting in on a Monopoly game, one that actually has rules - in this case, set up by the Estonian government - and they actually seemed to enjoy playing along. |
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Smoking Gun. "If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." - Shakespeare's Macbeth,
plotting murder. |
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Less than 200 kilometers from St. Petersburg lies one of Russia's oldest and lovliest cities, Novgorod the Great. Founded in the ninth century, this city was Russia's most advanced political and cultural nexus for about 600 years, before being brought to heel by Ivan the Terrible. |
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Arabs 'Astonished' CAIRO (Reuters) - The Arab League voiced astonishment and concern Sunday at the U.S. decision to veto a UN resolution calling for international monitors to help curb violence between Israel and Palestinians. |
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Fab Figo ZURICH, Switzerland (Reuters) - Luis Figo of Real Madrid was crowned FIFA's World Play er of the Year on Monday when he narrowly out-scored Manchester United's Da vid Beckham in a poll of national team coaches. "It is a privilege for me to stand here and accept this trophy," said Figo, the 29-year-old Portuguese international forward. |
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