LOCAL NEWS

MIRILASHVILI HANDED 12-YEAR JAIL TERM

The Leningrad District Military Court on Friday handed down a 12-year jail term to local businessperson Mikhail Mirilashvili, who has spent the last 2 1/2 years in jail on charges of creating a criminal gang, kidnapping and attempted murder.

While dropping the attempted-murder charge, the court gave its verdict based on articles 33, 126 and 127 of the Russian Criminal Code.

N. OSSETIA MOURNS VICTIMS OF BOMBING

VLADIKAVKAZ, North Ossetia - Soldiers and civilians in North Ossetia observed a day of mourning Monday in honor of the victims of a deadly suicide truck bombing that killed 50 people at a military hospital.

Berezovsky Lashes Out at Writer of Yukos Report

MOSCOW - Stanislav Belkovsky, the political analyst behind a report suggesting that the oligarchs are planning to turn Russia into a parliamentary republic, is an educated master of black PR and probably working for the special services lobby in the presidential administration, other political analysts and his former employer Boris Berezovksy said.

NATIONAL NEWS

RUSSIA STILL HESITANT ON RATIFYING KYOTO

The Soviet Union and its successor states have never been renowned as great champions of environmental causes. However, an ironic twist of history means that the fate of the Kyoto protocol, the highest profile attempt to date to safeguard the future of the world's environment, now rests squarely on Russia's shoulders.

AUTHORITIES CLOSE OFF MOSCOW'S RED SQUARE

MOSCOW - Natalya Borisovna, a 45-year-old doctor from Novosibirsk, could barely hide her disappointment.

She had been planning a trip to Moscow for months, saving money and dreaming about reliving some of the fondest memories of her student days with a stroll around Red Square.

CENTER GETS KIDS THINKING ABOUT WATER

How much water does the average St. Petersburger use every day? Any of the schoolchildren at the new Children's Environmental Center can tell you that the answer is at least 300 liters.

They could also tell you that a five-minute shower consumes about 100 liters, as does a typical laundry cycle.

These kids with water on the brain got their facts and figures from Saving Water Together, one of the new center's flagship programs.

FABERGE DESCENDENT PRESENTS LATEST EGG TO CITY

Representatives of Theo Faberge, grandson of legendary Russian jeweler Carl Faberge, on Monday presented St. Petersburg with a Faberge Easter egg made specially by the 80-year-old jeweler for the city's 300th anniversary.

IN BRIEF

One Less Candidate

ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Alexander Gabitov, one of the candidates for the vacant post of governor of St. Petersburg, withdrew his candidacy without waiting for the ruling of the city's Electoral Commission on his registration, Interfax reported on Saturday.

Dmitri Krasnyansky, the deputy chairperson of the Electoral Commission, told Interfax that the committee meeting that would have ruled on Gabitov's candidacy was to have met on Saturday.

LOCAL BUSINESS

SIBNEFT TARGETS GASOLINE SECTOR

Sibneft, Russia's sixth largest oil producer, has opened a subsidiary in St. Petersburg, the company announced at the end of last week. While the company says that the goal of the local subsidiary will be to grab a significant share of the city's retail-gasoline market, energy-sector analysts believe that Sibneft is also planning to use its refinery capacity to take a bigger chunk of the local wholesale petroleum-products sector.

LARGE FARMING IDEA HURTS LITTLE FARMERS' BIG DREAMS

MOSCOW - Deep in breadbasket territory, a debate is raging over how big farms should be, illustrating just how deeply the agriculture sector is rooted to its Soviet past - and just how conflicted those ties are.

YAKOVLEV: RAILWAYS MINISTRY'S DAYS NUMBERED

MOSCOW - By the end of 2003, for the first time in 138 years, Russia will no longer have a Railways Ministry, Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Yakovlev said Sunday.

"In principle this issue has been already resolved," news agencies quoted Yakovlev as saying on national Railway Worker's Day.

OIL EXPORTS REMAIN NEAR RECORD LEVELS

MOSCOW - The country's pipeline oil exports fell slightly in July but still stood near last month's all-time high while oil output hit another post-Soviet peak, Energy Ministry data showed Monday.

OPINION

RUSSIA IS CUT OUT FOR AN ECONOMIC MIRACLE

In his state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, President Vladimir Putin set the target of doubling GDP over the next 10 years. In order to achieve this objective, average GDP growth must be no less than 7.2 percent per year.

This is an entirely realistic goal, as is corroborated, first, by the experience of those 68 countries that in the past half-century have managed to double their GDP over a 10-year period and, second, by Russia's actual GDP growth between 1999 and 2003, which averaged 6.

SETTING A POOR, MARKET-DRIVEN EXAMPLE

A Pentagon-sponsored project made news headlines last week. It was called FutureMAP and aimed to create a market to trade futures on some fundamentals of Middle Eastern politics, including coups and terrorist acts.

SHARE IN THE CREDIT, SHARE IN THE BLAME

Give Anders Åslund credit - he has no shame. After all the misleading advice he offered before the Aug. 17, 1998 crash ("How Russia Became a Market Economy"), he apparently has no hesitation in urging Western investors again to plunge into the Russian market.

OBLAST INVESTORS GET MORE CONCESSIONS

For years, the Northwest Region (particularly the Leningrad and Novgorod oblasts) has been the established leader in the enactment of progressive regional tax concessions, with a disproportionately high level of investment being attracted.

WORLD

Juve Gains Revenge With Super Cup Win

EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - For Juventus coach Marcello Lippi, Sunday's victory over AC Milan in the Italian SuperCup championship wasn't about revenge - it was about paying tribute to a long-time friend.

After rallying in the first overtime to tie the match at 1, Juventus prevailed 5-3 in penalty kicks to win its fifth SuperCup title and second in a row.