LOCAL NEWS

SUNKEN SHIP CAUSING NEVA CHAOS

More than 90 ships had piled up in the Neva River and in the Gulf of Finland by Monday night, waiting for the weather to allow emergency officials to clear away enough of a vessel that struck a pier of Liteiny Bridge on Friday morning to allow navigation of the river route to be resumed.

COPTER CRASH LEAVES 74 DEAD

MOSCOW - A Russian military helicopter loaded with troops crashed in Chechnya on Monday, killing at least 74 people, possibly after it was shot down by Chechen rebels, Russian news agencies reported.

NATIONAL NEWS

KASYANOV CHANGES HIS TUNE OVER FEDERAL-BUDGET SURPLUS

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov reversed course on Friday, saying the government intends to draft a federal-budget surplus each year through 2005 - a day after he said a surplus would stop being a priority after repayments peak at over $17 billion next year.

AIR FORCE TURNS 90, LOOKS TO FUTURE

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin wound up a week of celebrations to mark the 90th anniversary of the Russian Air Force by taking control of an Su-27 fighter simulator and carrying out a series of complicated aerial maneuvers.

IN BRIEF

Kim Rail Chaos

VLADIVOSTOK, Far East (Reuters) - Travelers can breathe a sigh of relief. North Korea's plane-shy leader Kim Jong-il is preparing to visit Russia, but this time he will not be allowed to snarl up the railway system.

Kim, like his father and state founder Kim Il-sung, does not like flying.

LOCAL BUSINESS

FORMER ROSNEFT VP REPEATS VODKA GRAB

MOSCOW - For Alexander Romanov, laying siege to the country's largest Vodka distillery is becoming a biennial event.

On Monday, for the second time in two years, the former vice president of oil major Rosneft marched into Kristall's tsarist-era compound in eastern Moscow and declared himself in charge.

PAPER-PLANT RULINGS MUDDY THE WATERS

A fight over the ownership of the Vyborg Pulp and Paper Plant between two groups of shareholders has landed in court - or, more accurately, has landed in two courts that have handed down conflicting rulings.

AIRLINES URGE IMPORT-TAX CUT ON FOREIGN PLANES

DOMODEDOVO, Moscow Oblast -The country's top airlines on Friday urged the government to slash import duties on foreign aircraft to avert what they say is a looming industry crisis.

Chief executives of leading domestic carriers told Transport Minister Sergei Frank that, if domestic jet makers continue to miss delivery deadlines and fail to service existing craft adequately, they will not be able to operate when new European environmental regulations come into effect in 2006.

RUSSIAN MAJORS SET SIGHTS ON KUWAITI OIL PROJECT

MOSCOW - Oil majors Sibneft and LUKoil are contending for key roles in a delayed project to boost oil production in northern Kuwait.

A day after Russia said that it was preparing to sign $40 billion worth of contracts with Iraq, a delegation led by Energy Minister Igor Yusufov on Monday opened discussions with officials from neighboring Kuwait on expanding economic and technical cooperation in the oil industry.

WORLD WATCH

Balanced Bush

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush, weighing new tax cuts he said would stimulate the economy, pledged to bring the U.S. federal budget back into balance.

"We cannot go down the path of soaring budget deficits," Bush said Saturday.

The president used his weekly radio address to promote the no-deficits theme that emerged from the economic summit held last week near his ranch.

OPINION

THE STAKES ARE HIGH FOR BRAZIL AND THE IMF

THE world is waiting to see how the market will judge Brazil and whether the International Monetary Fund's rescue package, announced over the last week, will bring the country back from the brink. It would be foolish to try to predict the movements of a global market that has demonstrated a proclivity for excessive pessimism.

IN DEFENSE OF FATHERLAND OR THEIR OWN POCKETS?

AMUSING things are occurring in the country's defense industry. In July, the state-owned Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Production Plant, or KnAAPO, sued the (also state-owned) Sukhoi Aviation Military Industrial Complex, or AVPK Sukhoi.

ON TURKMENISTAN AND TURKMENBASHISM

SEVERAL years ago, I was attending Tajik peace negotiations as an expert on human rights, and one of the rounds took place in Ashgabat. In my first days of communicating with Turkmen Foreign Ministry officials, I could not understand the all-encompassing love for Turkmenistan's president, Saparmurat Niyazov, otherwise known as Turkmenbashi.

A GLIMPSE OF THE MEDIA SECTOR IN 2109?

Plus ca change,

plus c'est la meme chose.

DO you recall the pitched battles over freedom of speech that marked President Vladimir Putin's accession to the throne? The fight over NTV and TV6, the rallies and demonstrations of support held across the country? The reports delivered in the Council of Europe on freedom of speech in Russia? The intervention on behalf of the journalists by the U.

Global Eye

The Past is PrologueThere is a thread running through modern U.S. history, a thin red cord that weaves in and out of the shifting facades of reason and respectability that mask the brutal machinery of power. At certain rare moments, the thread flashes into sight, emerging from the chaotic jumble of unbearable truth and life-giving illusion that makes up human reality.