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With dancers painted in gold from head to toe, floating fountains and choreographed laser beams dancing across the nocturnal skies, more than 40 visiting heads of state and their spouses had every chance Saturday to heed the advice of President Vladimir Putin and forget about politics for a while. |
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With hugs and handshakes, President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush publicly buried the hatchet in their disagreement over Iraq on Sunday and looked instead jointly to thwart the spread of weapons of mass destruction, especially in Iran and North Korea. |
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The preparations for St. Petersburg's 300th-anniversary celebrations brought positive predictions from federal and local leaders, feverish last-minute construction and restoration works and complaints about security, traffic and other inconveniences from residents. Now the frantic jubilee period has ended, Staff Writer Irina Titova asked some city residents about their impressions of the festivities. |
All photos from issue.
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President Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-EU summit on Saturday that may have been short on results but allowed him to score all the minor diplomatic victories he hoped for: greater cooperation with the European Union, virtually no criticism about Chechnya and a promise of further talks on visa-free travel. |
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Ten years ago, as leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States got set to meet for one of their first summits, in Minsk, Belarus, a prominent local businessperson said skeptically: "We have not felt the CIS. |
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The weekend's Russia-European Union summit was full of backslapping and compliments. But it was clear that some guests didn't feel as welcome as others. While President Vladimir Putin used the meetings and festivities to cement good relations with Western leaders, the mood between Russia and its closest neighbors - eight former Soviet satellites due to join the EU next May - were markedly cooler. |
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KOTLAS, Far North - While a survey conducted in all of Russia's regions by the presidential administration in May reported that over 90 percent of respondents viewed St. |
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The European Union on Saturday welcomed Russian moves to find a political solution to the war in Chechnya and condemned violence in the republic, but did not specifically address allegations of brutality by Russian soldiers against Chechen civilians. In a joint declaration, the EU and Russia said that they hope "that the recently started political process as well as the economic and social reconstruction will lead to the restoration of the rule of law, thus promoting the protection of human rights and a genuine reconciliation in Chechnya. |
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MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's failure to reform its military is standing in the way of full cooperation with NATO, a high-ranking NATO official said Monday. |
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Russia and India on Friday vowed to increase bilateral cooperation, including joint military exercises and space programs, while Russia and China agreed to strengthen their cooperation on defense. After a dinner banquet for the foreign guests marking the 300th anniversary of St. |
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The Federal Security Service, or FSB, this weekend ordered mobile-phone operators in St. Petersburg to switch off the GSM-standard encryption function used to protect callers' privacy. |
 ZELENOGRAD, Moscow Region - It was a raucous and protracted affair, but when the dust finally settled late Friday, tycoons Andrei Melnichenko and Oleg Deripaska had what they wanted - seats on the UES board ahead of the liquidation phase of the company's reform. |
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MOSCOW - Debate on the 2004 federal budget officially kicked into high gear Friday, with President Vladimir Putin calling on lawmakers and officials not to get carried away ahead of parliamentary elections and the Finance Ministry submitting the basic outlines of the bill to the government. |
 MOSCOW - Bank-card use in Russia has skyrocketed in the past year, but analysts say that is not necessarily a sign that Russians have been able to wean themselves from the security offered by hard cash. State-owned Sberbank, Russia's largest bank in which two-thirds of the country's population keep private accounts, issued 57 percent more bank cards over the past 12 months, reaching some 5 million people. |
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The number of Moscow banks operating in St. Petersburg has grown significantly over the last few years, and yet more of the capital's banks are expected to arrive on the local market soon. |
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Although local banks are becoming increasingly active in developing the financial-supermarket sector, with a large number of such outlets having opened in recent months, potential clients appear to be slow in warming to the idea. While analysts maintain that financial supermarkets are the best way to attract personal banking customers en masse, they admit that creating sufficient levels of demand could take some time. While Sberbank holds a leading position in terms of volume of personal banking, savings and current accounts, other commercial banks, after years of concentrating on developing large corporate clients, have also caught on to the advantages of attracting personal customers. |
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 With the local banking sector continuing to develop at a frenzied pace, Angelina Davydova spoke to three industry experts about the latest trends and prospects for the future. |
 Though many working in the local banking sector claim that St. Petersburg's banks have yet to experience the full effects of the national banking reforms currently being carried out, many expressed a hope that such reforms would soon make an impact on their work. |
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MOSCOW - Up to 75 percent, or $43 billion, of all corporate loans made by Russian banks are high-risk, according to a new report by Standard & Poor's. |
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Now that the celebrations in St. Petersburg are finally over, it is time to take stock of the results that the frantic summitry there has produced. It is safe to say that both the Russia-EU summit and the meeting between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. |
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The Russian economy depends entirely on the export of oil and gas. The state of world financial and commodity markets therefore determines the country's political future to a significant extent. |
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Copycat Killers "This is a blessing of Sept. 11!" exclaimed the president's top adviser, as tanks rolled across the border and paratroopers blackened the sky above the enemy's land - an outlaw state seething with "terrorists" and run by "international criminals." With embedded media breathlessly narrating the action, the president launched the greatest display of military might the country had seen in more than a generation, an earth-shaking blitzkrieg that the generals like to call "Shock and Awe. |
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Praying for Rain HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims prayed Sunday in a southern city in India for respite from a heat wave that has claimed 884 lives. Some 100,000 Muslims offered special prayers for rain in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state, following a tradition set by Mohammed, who is believed to have led similar prayers for rain more than 14 centuries ago. |
Temp: 0°C partly cloudy 
Issues Archive