LOCAL NEWS

SECOND WOMAN LOOKING FOR VOTE

Over a month after she announced in a speech before the Legislative Assembly that she would run in the Sept. 21 election for St. Petersburg governor, Anna Markova on Monday finally made it official by filing her candidacy application with the City Election Commission (CEC).

PUTIN STILL DODGING SITUATION AT YUKOS

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin tippy toed around the snowballing investigations against the owners of Yukos at a Kremlin meeting on Friday, leaving the market and the country none the wiser on how the politically charged case will play out.

Khodorkovsky Gets Some Big-Money Support

MOSCOW - Oligarch-under-fire Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday got words of support from Lord Jacob Rothschild, a key member of the powerful family whose banking empire spans centuries and continents and who has joined up with the Russian oil baron for philanthropic projects that promote ties between Russia and the West.

NATIONAL NEWS

HOMELESS SIX TALK SOCCER GLORY

Despite finishing 13th out of 18 teams in the first Homeless World Cup soccer tournament held last week in Graz, Austria, Russia's representatives in the competition, a team of six men from St. Petersburg, returned to the city proud of their accomplishment and boasting the tournament's most valuable player.

TSARIST DEBT LEADS TO GRAB FOR HERMITAGE ART TREASURES

A collection of paintings from the State Hermitage Museum is under threat of being seized to pay off the old debts of the Russian government - 86-year-old debts, to be exact.

RUSSIAN STUDENTS HAVE TROUBLED ROAD TO U.S.

MOSCOW - Despite expectations for significant growth, the number of university students going to the United States to work for the summer or sightsee is shaping up to be hundreds fewer this year due to late and improperly filled out visa applications, the U.

POLICE BELEIVE WITNESS MAY LINK MOSCOW BOMB ATTACKS

MOSCOW - Police suspect that a middle-aged woman in sunglasses helped organize the double-suicide bombings at a rock concert July 5 and the botched attack on a downtown restaurant last Wednesday, Kommersant reported Monday.

IN BRIEF

Nose Found

ST. PETERSBURG (Reuters) - A giant statue of a nose, inspired by Nikolai Gogol's story of a man's pursuit for his runaway nose, was tracked down by St. Petersburg police Friday, 10 months after it vanished.

The marble sculpture, erected eight years ago to honor the tale, disappeared last September from the house where the story's hero is supposed to have lived.

LOCAL BUSINESS

ARE THE OLIGARCHS CASHING OUT?

MOSCOW - As prosecutors continue their assault on the Yukos empire of Russia's richest man, speculation is mounting that its second-richest, Sibneft owner Roman Abramovich, may be preparing to pull out of the country altogether.

Two leading Moscow dailies, Kommersant and Gazeta, both reported Friday, citing anonymous sources, that the Siberian oil tycoon turned Chelsea soccer sugar daddy is in talks to sell his half of RusAl, the world's second-largest aluminum producer.

FIXING PROBE AT BRUNSWICK EXTENDED

MOSCOW - Federal authorities have extended their initial two-month investigation on price manipulation at Brunswick UBS until Sept. 6, the investment bank's president said.

Ruble Union Plagued By Further Setbacks

MOSCOW - Officially, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko's last-minute decision earlier this month to delay the introduction of the Russian ruble in business-to-business transactions was due to "technical difficulties."

But observers say that the much-touted currency union between the two former Soviet states will likely be scuttled altogether because it would require the Belarussian strongman to relinquish some of his power.

OPINION

SLOWER NOW, STRONGER LATER

At the Higher School of Economics, we recently completed work on a report on the "nonmarket" sector of the Russian economy. The study focuses on the crucial trade-off between structural reforms and economic growth.

As has been widely reported, President Vladimir Putin, in his state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly earlier in the year, set the objective of doubling GDP in 10 years and also stated that we do not need reform for reform's sake.

PRESIDENTIAL AMBIGUITY UNDERMINES

President Vladimir Putin's remarks to the country's political elite on Friday about methods of dealing with economic crime - the president's first indirect pronouncement on the judicial attack against Yukos - were delivered with trademark ambiguity.

BIG TELEVISION'S MESSAGE IS MIXED AT BEST

The most interesting thing about the coverage of the "Yukos affair" on state television these past few weeks is just how limited and incomprehensible that coverage has been. Compared with the extensive coverage of the other big criminal/political scandals of late, Yukos has been a non-story.

NEW FACES FOR SAME OLD SYSTEM

In the 1990s, it became something of a tradition for dramatic events of one kind or another to take place in the month of August. The coup attempt in 1991, then default and devaluation in 1998, the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2000 - all occurred in August.

Chekist 'Chelseafication' Of the Leading Oligarchs

Yukos is the most transparent company in Russia. Last year it paid $4.5 billion in taxes. And Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is Russia's richest man, according to EuroBusiness magazine.

In Russia, the drive for transparency can all too easily be interpreted as a drive for independence. Maybe that's why Yukos now finds itself at the center of a battle between the oligarchs and the siloviki - bigwigs in the armed forces, law-enforcement and the intelligence services.