LOCAL NEWS

RURAL SCHOOL GETS BIG-CITY VISITOR

MOSCOW - Trying to bring something new to the tradition of visiting a school on the first day of classes, President Vladimir Putin went to a rural schoo on Monday to speak to teachers, children and their parents.

But even in Kostrovo - a village in the Istra district of the Moscow region - the subject was the same as every year in every school Russian leaders have visited: teachers' salaries, which are shamefully low and often not paid on time.

CHECHNYA'S SCHOOLKIDS FACE DIFFERENT TESTS

GROZNY - For the children who returned to School No. 41 in the Chechen capital on Monday, the first test was finding their way through the rubble of four school buildings to the only building still in one piece.

NATIONAL NEWS

IN BRIEF

Zhirinovsky in Trouble?

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov, said on Monday that Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky may be called to the carpet in the chamber for behavior unfitting of a deputy, Interfax reported.

Seleznyov told Interfax that, last week, Sergei Komkov, the president of the All-Russia Education Fund, lodged a complaint with him, saying that, on Aug.

LOCAL BUSINESS

SISTEMA OUSTED FROM PC PLANT

ZELENOGRAD, Moscow Region - Just as the dust began settling at one major local enterprise, it began swirling at another.

On Thursday, a day after a standoff between rival general directors at local vodka monopoly Kristall ended, another erupted at Kvant, the biggest computer factory in Russia.

On one side of the conflict is IVK, a leading personal-computer manufacturer, and on the other is Sistema, a giant holding company that controls leading mobile phone operator MTS and has close ties to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

BOOM PREDICTED FOR CONSUMER LENDING

MOSCOW - A few months ago, Pavel wanted a washing machine, but he didn't think he could afford it.

At $500, the one he had his eye on was more than he makes every month at a small company selling thermometers and manometers to pharmacies.

INTEL CORP. REFOCUSES INVESTMENT

BANGALORE, India - Intel Corp. plans to ramp up its investments in China and Russia, the world's top maker of computer-processor chips said Friday.

"China and Russia are probably the two which will see the greatest percentage growth in our presence over the next several years," CEO Craig Barrett told reporters during a two-day visit to India.

NEW WTO CHIEF CAUTIOUS ON PROSPECTS OF SWIFT ENTRY

GENEVA - Russia needs to introduce more reforms in its economic structure before it can join the World Trade Organization, the new head of the body Supachai Panitchpakdi said on Monday.

OPINION

OIL PRICES KEY TO U.S. POLICIES

OIL plays a role in the U.S. determination to end Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq - a role that goes far beyond the concerns that convulsed commodity markets over the last month.

The price of crude oil rose to more than $30 a barrel, a very high level, because of financial market concerns about a possible U.

WHITE-COLLAR CRIMINALS DON'T GET AN EASY RIDE

LAST week, as I sat in federal court in Philadelphia anxiously awaiting the sentencing of one of my clients, I couldn't help but wonder if the political climate regarding white-collar crime among corporate executives - U.

DUMA DEPUTY KILLED FOR POLITICS OR CASH?

DEMOCRACY in Russia last week suffered yet another loss. State Duma Deputy Vladimir Golovlyov, a former member of the Union of Right Forces and more recently co-chairperson of Boris Berezovsky's Liberal Russia party, was shot dead near his home in Mitino.

PLEAS FOR BALANCE IN PAPER AND ON FILM

Editor,

Having read another of your columnist's rants about George Bush/corporate evils/capitalism/insert left-wing demagoguery, I felt that I really must chide you for the slant.

DOUBLE STANDARDS MAKE ENEMIES ON ALL SIDES

ON Sept. 5 and 6, the U.S. State Department will host a high-powered conference on anti-Americanism, an unusual step indicating the depth of American concern about this increasingly globalized phenomenon.

Anti-Americanism can be mere shallow name-calling.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE

AFTER every new catastrophe in Russia, the sociologists announce, to great fanfare, that President Vladimir Putin's approval rating remains unchanged. Whatever the president does, and whatever the consequences of his actions, his rating holds at a steady 70 percent.

Global Eye

Global Eye would like to apologize for having inadvertently helped perpetrate a fraud upon the reading public. In doing so, it has - also inadvertently - facilitated the efforts of a criminal enterprise bent on plunder, conquest and the promulgation of a mad, inhuman ideology. These are heavy crimes and Global Eye, no doubt, will answer heavily for its complicity in them.

WORLD

WORLD WATCH

North Koreans Arrested

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese police have detained a group of North Koreans planning to seek refugee status in Beijing, along with a South Korean man who was helping them, a refugee activist said Monday.

The group was picked up at the train station in the northeastern city of Changchun on Saturday evening, according to Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor who has worked to publicize the plight of North Korean refugees.

STALKER, RAIN CAN'T STOP THE SERENA SHOW

NEW YORK - As usual, nothing fazed Serena Williams on court.

With a man who's tracked her around the globe for a year sitting in a jail cell less than 10 miles away, Williams waited out a long rain delay Sunday and then eased into the U.

SPORTS WATCH

Ronaldo on the Move

MADRID (Reuters) - Real Madrid finally brought an end to the Ronaldo saga when they agreed to a deal to sign the Brazil striker from Inter Milan, minutes before Europe's transfer deadline expired on Saturday.

Ronaldo will sign a four-year deal at Real, which will pay a total of $46.