LOCAL NEWS

GIVING A HOLIDAYGIFT OF FAMILIES

GAGARIN, Smolensk Region - As a school bell clangs at the Gagarin internat school, sending students scampering down the chilly corridors for lunch, the director's office is abuzz with the news that more local families have been found to take the school's children into their homes for the winter holidays.

OFFICIAL: STAROVOITOVA CASE SOLVED

The Prosecutor General's office on Friday said that it considered the case of the murder of Galina Starovoitova to be solved, but relatives and former colleagues of the late State Duma Deputy are far from convinced.

CHRISTMAS SERVICES AT ST. PETERSBURG CHURCHES

Church of Our Lady of Lourdes
(Roman Catholic)

5 Kovensky Per. Tel.: 272-5002.

Dec. 24

8 p.m. - Christmas Eve Mass (Latin)

10 p.m. - Christmas Eve Mass (Polish)

Midnight - Christmas Eve Mass (Russian)

Dec. 25

9 a.m. - Christmas Day Mass (Polish)

Noon - Christmas Day Mass (Latin)

2 p.m. - Christmas Day Mass (Polish)

7 p.m. - Christmas Day Mass (Russian)

Dec.

FROM RUSSIA TO GUANTANAMO, VIA AFGHANISTAN

NABEREZHNIYE CHELNY, Tatarstan - Ravil Gumarov, 40, was once a model Soviet citizen. He was a member of the Komsomol, he graduated from vocational school, and he had a well-paid position as a foreman at construction sites in his hometown.

NATIONAL NEWS

GROZNY RESIDENTS VANISH INTO A VEIL OF DARKNESS

GROZNY - In November, residents of the Chechen capital received address signs for their homes. The street name and house number were written out in large white letters on a blue background - easy to read even from a distance.

The last time Grozny saw this kind of spruce-up was at the start of the 1990s, when the Soviet-era names of some streets were switched to Chechen ones.

18 ESCAPE YOUNG OFFENDERS CENTER

Eighteen teenage inmates staged an escape from a young offenders' detention center in Kolpino, 25 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, early Sunday morning.

IN BRIEF

Grenade Kills Two

YEKATERINBURG, Ural Mountains (AP) - Two men were killed and a third was injured in a grenade blast in the Sverdlovsk region, police said Monday.

The three had gathered Sunday for a night of drinking in a garage in the town of Zarechny, the Sverdlovsk regional police's press department said.

LOCAL BUSINESS

CASH RESTRICTIONS LIKELY TO REMAIN IN PLACE

MOSCOW - After a year of debate and high-level lobbying efforts by Western businesses, it will likely take at least another year before restrictions on foreigners taking cash out of the county are eased.

The State Duma on Friday approved in second and third reading long-awaited amendments to the law on currency that would raise to $10,000 from $1,500 the amount of cash foreigners and Russians can carry out of the country without special Central Bank permission.

IN BRIEF

Unemployment Down

MOSCOW (Prime-Tass) - The number of unemployed in Russia fell 0.1 percent on the month and 18.4 percent on the year in November to 5.

S&P JOINS SLAVNEFT CRITICISM

MOSCOW - Standard & Poor's on Friday gave a thumbs down to last week's $1.86-billion joint purchase of Slavneft by Sibneft and TNK.

The international ratings agency revised its outlook for Sibneft to "negative" from "developing" and lowered its Russian rating for the company because of the acquisition, which it said weakens the financial profiles of both companies.

HUNGER STRIKE THREATENS RUSSIAN AIR-TRAVEL SAFETY

MOSCOW - Hundreds of air-traffic controllers across the country were on hunger strike Monday, with more threatening to join in Tuesday in a fight for higher salaries.

Internet Rich With Free Stock-Surfing Options

WASHINGTON - The No. 1 question I'm asked most these days is: "What will the stock market do next year?"

The answer is easy: "I don't know."

In the short term (and I would place the next 12 months in that category), future U.S. market movements are a random walk, utterly unknowable from today's perspective - and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

OPINION

RUSSIA'S RAIL REFORM ON TRACK FOR FAILURE

THIS month, a package of reforms aimed at overhauling the Railways Ministry passed its second reading in the State Duma. It's a curious thing: Reforming Unified Energy Systems, the national power monopoly, has been like pulling teeth; but railways reform has passed like a hot knife through butter.

STATE SCORED OWN GOAL OVER SLAVNEFT

IT was to have been the auction to top all privatization auctions: The beginning of a new era of open, competitive sell-offs of state property, netting much more cash for the budget than any other privatization tender in Russia's post-Soviet history.

BLAIR FOR U.S. PRESIDENT

WITH Al Gore now out of the U.S. presidential race, everyone is giving the Democrats advice on who their candidate should be. All I know is that whomever the Democrats choose needs to keep in mind a few basic rules that Democrats have forgotten in recent years.

GETTING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY STARTED

THE last several days have seen Henry Kissinger resign from leading the 9/11 commission, Trent Lott quit his post as incoming Senate majority leader and former Vice President Al Gore pull out of the 2004 presidential race.

KREMLIN FOUND GOOD DIVERSION WITH ZAKAYEV

Akhmed Zakayev has become the Kremlin's most wanted man.

Moscow's reaction to Denmark's decision last month not to extradite Zakayev to Russia was furious. Moscow suspected Copenhagen of political bias in favor of Chechen separatists, accused the European Union of operating double standards, and threatened to raise the issue in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

GLOBAL EYE

Battlefield Earth

"Our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a mass scale.

WORLD

ZENIT LOOKS TO FUTURE WITH NEW HEAD COACH

St. Petersburg got its first glimpse of Zenit's new head coach, Vlastimil Petrzela of the Czech Republic, at a press conference with the club's president, Vitaly Mutko, on Friday.

"I'm very happy to be in St. Petersburg," Petrzela said through an interpreter.

SPORTS WATCH

Oracle Into Final

AUCKLAND - Software billionaire Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing completed a 4-0 whitewash of bitter U.S. rival OneWorld on Monday to win a place in the America's Cup challengers series final.