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After an odd and confusing day of legal activity, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was back behind bars where he started - but he wasn't denied bail. After a marathon session with several twists and turns, the Basmanny district court failed to decide if the Yukos billionaire should be freed or kept in pretrial detention for another three months, as requested by the Prosecutor General's Office. |
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MOSCOW - Pro-Kremlin United Russia is assured of having 224 seats in the next State Duma, according to final election results released Friday, and with dozens of independent deputies set to join its ranks, the party may well end up with the two-thirds needed to change the Constitution. |
 St. Petersburg animation studio Peterburg has prepared a New Year's gift for Russian children and adults - a new animated film "Where Does the Old Year Go?" that is expected to screen on the two leading national channels ORT and RTR on Dec. 28. The cartoon is one of the first in a new Russian series of 200 cartoons for children called "Smeshariki," or "Balltoons," to be produced by the studio's creative team of 30. |
All photos from issue.
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Ring Road Breaches ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The federal Audit Chamber found a series of spending irregularities that occurred during construction of the ring road around the city, Interfax on Monday quoted the chamber's press service as saying Friday. |
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The trial of those accused of assassinating democratic State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova in November 1998 will not be heard by a jury, the St. Petersburg city court decided Friday. |
 This week, the world's Jewish community is celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Dating back almost 2,500 years ago and celebrating one of the greatest miracles in Jewish history, Hanukkah takes place every year in mid or late December and lasts for seven nights and eight days. |
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MOSCOW - With his opponent effectively out of the race, Bashkir President Murtaza Rakhimov won re-election in a weekend runoff with 78 percent of the vote, according to preliminary election results released Monday. |
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MOSCOW - Yabloko said Sunday that it will not field a presidential candidate but stopped short of calling for its electorate to boycott the March election altogether. "The political situation in the country is such that just and equal presidential elections are impossible," Yabloko deputy head Sergei Mitrokhin said Sunday at the end of a two-day congress in the Moscow region, Interfax reported. Yabloko leader and two-time presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky reiterated complaints Sunday by his party, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, and the Communists that the results of the Dec. 7 State Duma elections had been rigged. Yabloko and SPS both failed to clear the 5 percent threshold to win seats in the next Duma. |
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 MOSCOW - Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev praised the work of intelligence agents Friday, saying the FSB caught five foreign spies this year. |
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 Doubling city budget revenues in three years and providing all public employees with salaries above the subsistence level by the end of 2004 are key short-term tasks of the new city administration, according to St. Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko, who spoke at the general meeting of the St. |
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International Paper will consider investing $250 million in the Svetogorsk pulp and paper mill during the next five years, the corporation's president Robert Amen told journalists Monday. |
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MOSCOW - French oil giant Total is considering buying Sibneft after it demerges from bigger Yukos, Vedomosti said Friday, quoting unnamed banking sources. Sibneft's owners are discussing the sale of a 92 percent stake to Total for $12 billion, the newspaper said, adding that other international oil majors, including U. |
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MOSCOW - Airbus on Friday awarded Nizhny Novgorod-based Sokol a contract to supply components for its family of passenger jets, the first of several deals that are expected to open the global market to Russia's struggling aerospace industry. |
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MOSCOW - No one is throwing tea into the harbor just yet, but a new court case is setting the stage for a tax revolt among Western expatriates working in Russia. On Friday an international consulting firm filed a query with the Constitutional Court, asking it to clarify why a company must pay the unified social tax for foreign employees when they cannot benefit from state pensions. "It's a landmark moment" for foreigners' rights in Russia, said Karina Khudenko, senior tax manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. The bulk of the social tax is directed into the State Pension Fund, with smaller amounts going toward social and medical insurance. |
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 MOSCOW - With pro-presidential forces controlling the majority in the new State Duma, there is more and more talk of possible amendments to the Constitution, passed in 1993. |
 The style of St. Petersburg's fashion legend Tatyana Parfyonova breaks all the widespread stereotypes of refined fashion designers. Parfyonova shows up for the interview in black jeans, black shirt and black sneakers. Her dark hair is slightly rustled. She wears no make up. And she doesn't have even a drop of the arrogance that sales staff at many fashion salons use to scare customers. |
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During the campaign for the Dec. 7 elections for the Russian parliament, President Vladimir Putin declared corruption a threat to national security that must be countered by imposing "law and order." His proclamation followed the Oct. 25 arrest at gunpoint of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the controlling shareholder of Russia's largest oil firm Yukos, on grounds of forgery and tax evasion. |
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A few weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow wrote in The St. Petersburg Times about the importance of protecting intellectual property in rebuilding Russia's economy; of course, readers know he really means in strengthening America's economy - that is his job and nobody should begrudge him for it. |
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In response to "Cyprus to Open a Consulate General," an article by Irina Titova on Dec. 16. Editor, Russia would do well to modify its visa requirement to "if you have $1,000 in cash and a valid credit card, you may enter." Worries about evil people entering the country can be handled via visual profiling of the entrants. |
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Best-Laid Plans One of the constant refrains we hear from the malcontents carping about George W. Bush's triumphant crusade in Iraq is the charge - the canard - that the president and his crack team of advisers "had no plan" for the post-war period, that they've stumbled from crisis to crisis, changing policies without rhyme or reason, or have even "plunged off a cliff," as erstwhile war-hawk Newt Gingrich declared last week. |
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China's Property Rights BEIJING (AP) - Chinese legislators on Monday introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee private property rights - the first such protection of the communist era. The change has been the object of extensive and heated debate within the ruling party. |
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LONDON - Manchester United ended a stormy week for the club with a 2-1 win at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday that swept them to the top of the premier league. |
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MOSCOW - No Russian club or Russian trainer has ever won a European soccer trophy, but next season two men with three European trophies between them will take charge at champions CSKA Moscow and Spartak Moscow. One's an Italian, the other is Portuguese. |
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MOSCOW - Kimmo Kuhta scored the winner 17 seconds from time Sunday to give Finland a 2-1 victory over Sweden and the Baltika Cup ice hockey tournament title. |
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