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MOSCOW - A new Audit Chamber report spells out hundreds of ways the Russia-Belarus Union has misused its budget money because of corruption and incompetence - including more than 100 million rubles (roughly $3,5 million at the time) that were misspent in an attempt to develop a diesel car. Much of funding provided by Russia and Belarus for their union, the report shows, was spent by union bureaucrats as if it was their own pocket money: Unbudgeted cars and trucks were purchased; buildings were constructed in cities other than those named in the budget; and useless projects were funded and loans were given to unapproved projects, while no money was allocated for approved projects. |
All photos from issue.
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Tallinn Salutes Piter ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A delegation from St. Petersburg arrived in the Estonian capital on Thursday to participate in the St. Petersburg Days festival being held there, Interfax reported. The delegation - headed by Vice Governor Yury Antonov and made up of officials, businesspeople and cultural figures - will participate in the four-day festival, which ends on April 14. |
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MOSCOW - The Communist Party refrained Thursday from punishing State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov for disregarding his party's order to step down from his post, and experts said the Communists are not likely to press ahead with his ouster from the party. |
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MOSCOW - Two British explorers were forced to abandon an attempt to drive across the frozen Bering Strait from Alaska to Chukotka when they ran into paperwork problems at the Russian border, the expedition's spokesperson said this week. Steve Brooks and co-pilot Graham Stratford set out from Alaska on the morning of April 4 in their amphibious vehicle Snowbird 6, and by April 5 they had reached Little Diomede Island, the halfway point of the 90-kilometer trip. |
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MOSCOW - The United States announced proposed new visa rules designed to keep out terrorists, but most Russians will not find it any more difficult to get a U. |
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No Arms Breakthrough MADRID, Spain (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell took a break from Middle East diplomacy on Thursday to meet Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, but no breakthrough emerged on finalizing a document to cut nuclear arsenals. The United States and Russia are working on an agreement to reduce the world's two largest nuclear stockpiles by about a third in time for it to be signed by U. |
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MOSCOW - They're not ready to bare all, but Russia's top companies are slowly revealing more financial information, Dmitry Vasiliyev, head of the Institute of Corporate Law and Governance, said Wednesday. Of 34 companies accounting for about 90 percent of total market capitalization, all but nine boosted their scores on the institute's corporate-transparency rating for the fourth quarter of 2001. The institute is a minority shareholder in all the companies it rates. The main improvements were fuller disclosure, an increase in the number of independent directors on companies' boards and stronger boards of directors that actually wield some control over management, most notably at natural monopolies Unified Energy Systems and Gazprom, Vasiliyev said. |
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 The Prosecutor General's Office has launched a criminal case against a company that has drawn some $76.3 million in loans to build a high-speed rail link between Moscow and St. |
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MOSCOW - The cabinet has approved a three-year concept for tourism development aimed at boosting the number of foreign visitors, partly by easing the visa process and halting the loathsome practice of seizing undeclared foreign currency at customs upon leaving the country. |
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Boat Building ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Local shipyard Severnaya Verf, a subsidiary of Noviye Programmy i Kontseptsy (NPK), and the Czech Republic are planning to sign a contract later this month for the construction of 15 ships over the next five years, Interfax reported on Thursday. |
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STANFORD, California - For most of the 20th century, the defining political question was: What do you think of Russia? At the beginning of the 21st century, it is: What do you think of America? Tell me your America and I'll tell you who you are. Sitting in sun-dried California, I have been trying to work out exactly what I think. |
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IN March 1994, I served as a European Union election observer in Moldova. Our group published a report critical of election coverage in Moldova proper and the self-proclaimed Transdnestr republic. |
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PUBLIC opinion polls show that anti-American sentiment in Russia has reached a level not seen since the days of the Cold War. This hostility is not the product of a political confrontation, as was the case during the Soviet era, or of a diplomatic standoff, as happened on Yevgeny Primakov's watch as prime minister. |
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THE fracas following last week's move by pro-Kremlin factions to strip the Communists of most of their State Duma committee chairs has roused the political establishment from its mid-term slumber. |
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 If ever an article needed a disclaimer, this is it. Its author is the editor of The St. Petersburg Times. Its subject is an exhibition of works by Alexander Belenky and Sergey Grachev, The St. Petersburg Times' two staff photographers, organized to celebrate the paper's ninth birthday. |
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St. Petersburg dominates this year's Golden Mask festival nominations - for opera and ballet at least - and seems likely to clobber the competition when the awards are handed out on Monday. |
 Last weekend we saw Krzysztof Penderecki as both composer and conductor. On Friday, he conducted the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven's Fourth Symphony and his own Fifth Symphony, and on Saturday in the same Beethoven and "Metamorphoses," his own second violin concerto, with Lithuania-born Austrian violinist Julian Rachlin. |
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JFC Jazz Club, probably the city's finest jazz spot, will celebrate its eighth birthday on Friday with an all-night event that will start at JFC's own premises and then continue at house club Par. |
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Stolid St. Petersburg is rarely on the cutting edge of any new trend, and culinary trends are no exception. "Fusion" has been a hot buzzphrase in food circles for some time, denoting a style that aims to combine previously uncombined elements of numerous national cuisines into entirely unheard-of creations. |
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Ferry Fire Kills 23 LUCENA, Philippines (Reuters) - Fire swept across a Philippine inter-island ferry on Thursday, killing at least 23 people, many of whom drowned after jumping overboard. The MV Maria Carmela caught fire on its way to the port of Lucena, southeast of Manila. |
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SKA Coach Quits ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Rafil Ishmatov left his post as head coach of St. Petersburg ice-hockey team SKA on Tuesday. Ishmatov, who was unavaible for comment Thursday, was reported by national sports daily Sport Express as needing the time for his PhD dissertation in Sports Management. |
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AUGUSTA, Georgia - Defending champion Tiger Woods bounced back from a shaky start, but Scott Verplank fired three birdies in his first nine holes to set the early pace in the opening round of the U.S. Masters on Thursday. The 37-year-old Texan, who has missed the cut in all six of his previous Masters appearances, picked up shots at the third, sixth and ninth holes to reach the turn in three-under-par 33. |
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