Issue #1347 (11), Tuesday, February 12, 2008
 

TOP STORIES

UNIVERSITY DENIES ‘POLITICAL’ CLOSURE

St. Petersburg’s European University has dismissed claims that it has been closed down for political reasons, saying that a court ordered it to halt its operations because of fire code violations at the institution.

The University temporarily stopped ...

 

PRESIDENT SEES LOWER TAXES, FEWER BRIBES

MOSCOW — With three months left in his presidency, Vladimir Putin on Friday called for tax cuts, a downsizing of bureaucracy and less state involvement ...

PUTIN’S PRESIDENCY BOOSTED POWER, PRESTIGE OF KGB SUCCESSOR

It was a typical December night in Moscow. The cold was biting, the snow thick and dry.

In the Federal Security Service’s headquarters on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, hundreds of intelligence officers met as they did every year to celebrate the founding of ...

 

AGENTS IN POWER

The number of current and former intelligence officers employed by the state has increased significantly under President Vladimir Putin. Here are some ...

BREAKUP OF THE KGB

Feeling it was dangerous to place national security in the hands of a single organization, President Boris Yeltsin split the KGB into around a half dozen agencies in the early 1990s. Here’s what they were.

• The Federal Security Service, or FSB. This is the main domestic counterespionage agency. Its ...


 

NEWS

VOTE COMMISSION SEEKS TO GIVE BOOST TO TURNOUT

Amid fears of a low turnout in March 2 Russian presidential elections, the St. Petersburg Election Commission announced last week it will prepare personal invitations to more than three million registered voters in the city to “boost public awareness.” ...

 

RAPIST’S MURDER STIRS DEBATE

As a retired local boxer stands trial for killing an assailant who was caught attempting to rape his adopted child, the city parliament is calling for ...

U.S. PASTOR TO BE HELD FOR TWO MONTHS FOR INVESTIGATION

MOSCOW — A Moscow court has ordered a U.S. pastor to remain in detention for two months while prosecutors investigate him on suspicion of smuggling ammunition into the country, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Sunday.

Phillip Miles, a pastor of the Christ ...

 

LIBERAL OPPOSITION TO MEET IN SEARCH OF UNITY

MOSCOW — Representatives of the fractured liberal opposition will meet next month to discuss the creation of a broad liberal alliance and the development ...

Lukin Criticizes the Courts

MOSCOW — Human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said his efforts to defend citizens’ rights were being hampered by courts that lack independence and that issue poor rulings.

In an interview published Friday in government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Lukin singled out Moscow courts for delaying his work.

“Moscow ...

 

BUSINESS

LOCAL BANK URGES CLIENTS TO USE INTERNET BANKING

Bank St. Petersburg has launched an Internet banking system that managers expect will reduce operational expenses and attract new clients. So far, registering and using the system have been provided for free. However, only 10,000 clients regularly use ...

 

UKRAINE ULTIMATUM EXTENDED

MOSCOW — Russian gas monopoly Gazprom on Monday granted Ukraine a few extra hours to pay off debt or face a cut in supplies as tense talks overshadowed ...

In Brief

Sea Port Stake Acquired

ST. PETERSBBURG (SPT) — The Dutch company Universal Cargo Logistics Holding B.V. (UCLH) completed the acquisition of a 97.01 percent stake in the Sea Port St. Petersburg open joint-stock company from the former owners, Jysk Stalindustry ApS and Chupit Limited, along with ...

 

BUSINESS OPINION

TROUBLE AT THE TOP

It may not be obvious to shoppers at Lenta, but the city’s largest retail chain is the object of a serious conflict between its shareholders.

Lenta was founded in 1993 by the entrepreneur Oleg Zherebtsov and his partners. Along with O’Key and Pyatorochka, ...

 

IN GAZPROM’S VICE

It’s now been more than two years since Russia cut off gas supplies to Ukraine. It is threatening to do so again this week.

Many in the European Union ...

Business Needs To Play a Role In Fighting HIV

Russian business leaders are very aware of the negative role that alcohol and drug abuse play on the workplace, but the potential threat that HIV poses to the strength of the private sector is not as high on the corporate agenda. It should be.

The spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) ...

 

USA

MORE STATES FALL TO OBAMA

WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama is riding a burst of momentum into Tuesday’s presidential nominating contests with a string of weekend wins, while Republican John McCain received praise from onetime rival President George W. Bush as he tries to woo conservatives.

Locked in a deadlocked state-by-state battle with Obama for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton replaced her campaign manager after Saturday’s losses to the Illinois senator.

Obama, who would be the first black president, scored a win in Maine on Sunday after sweeping caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington a day earlier.

“We have now won on the Atlantic coast, we’ve won on the North Coast, we’ve won on the Pacific Coast, and we’ve won in between those coasts,” Obama said at a rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia after the Maine results were announced.

The Clinton staff shake-up came before the “Potomac Primary” on Tuesday when both parties hold contests in the U.S. capital and in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.

At a rally at a university in Bowie, Maryland, Clinton told the audience their choice “matters this year more than ever” and they should “pick a Democratic nominee who has been tested and vetted and can go the distance against John McCain.”

Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first woman president, did not mention Obama’s Maine victory nor did she discuss the staff shake-up.

Clinton named Maggie Williams, a top aide when she was first lady, to take over as campaign manager from Patti Solis Doyle, who was moved into the role of senior adviser.

Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said the shuffle ...

 

London’s Burning / Reuters

A huge fire destroyed buildings in Camden, north London, on Saturday. By Monday the cause of the blaze remained unknown.

ARCHBISHOP SAYS SHARIA LAW IS ‘UNAVOIDABLE’ IN GREAT BRITAIN

LONDON — Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, gets a chance to respond on Monday to a barrage of criticism after saying the introduction in Britain of some aspects of Islamic law is unavoidable.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has remained silent on the subject since his comments on Thursday on the use of sharia in Britain ...

 

REAL ESTATE

OKHTA CENTER TO HAVE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBOR

Managers of Kvartira.Ru investment corporation expect a business-class residential complex that the company is constructing on Sverdlovskaya embankment to benefit from the future development of the nearby territory, which is set to include the future Okhta Center skyscraper that will house Gazprom’s headquarters along with other businesses.

“Considering what is being constructed in this area, in just a few years we will be able to advertise this complex as being located at the center of business activity in the city,” Pavel Kanalin, general manager of Kvartira.Ru realtor agency, said Wednesday at a press conference.

The complex, named Platinum, will consist of 12 sections including about 600 apartments and two penthouses in total. Of a total area of 75,000 square meters, apartments will occupy 51,000 square meters, each one varying in size between 40 and ...

 

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WHAT TO EXPECT FROM 2008: EXPERT OPINIONS

Real estate experts optimistically forecast healthy growth in commercial areas of all market segments this year. The development of office areas is expected to increase, while a large number of warehouse facilities are under construction, with projects receiving backing from foreign investors and developers increasingly interested in the St. Petersburg ...

DECIPHERING THE LAW: LAND BUY-OUT PRICING LAWS

Paragraph 36 of the Land Code stipulates that owners of premises located on state and municipal lands have the exclusive right to buy these land plots. The new regulations from October 2007, which will be in force until January 2010, define the buying-out ...

 

GLAVSTROI’S PROSPECTS FOR LOCAL MARKET ROSY

ST. PETERSBURG — The large-scale selling of land plots last year by City Hall has resulted in the appearance on the local construction market of a major ...

TNK-BP INVESTMENT TO SOAR

The Russian-British oil company TNK-BP will buy land plots and invest over $150 million into filling stations in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast over the next five years, the company said Monday in a statement. The company will also invest in ...

 

IN BRIEF

City Tipped For $4 Bln

ST. PETERSBURG (Bloomberg) — Russian entrepreneur Andrei Rogachev, founder of the Pyaterochka and Carousel supermarket chains, ...

 

OPINION

A LOT OF DOOM ABOUT NOTHING

In 1788, Massachusetts playwright Mercy Otis Warren took one look at the unratified U.S. Constitution and declared, “We shall soon see this country rushing into the extremes of confusion and violence.” This, roughly, is the origin of American declinism ...

 

THE NEWS THAT DOESN’T GET REPORTED

There is something very strange about the way news is presented in Russia. On one hand, there is news that we are all aware of — news of Medvedev meeting ...

Putin’s Jewish Anomaly Comes as a Surprise

Josef Stalin and President Vladimir Putin epitomize the type of leader who is ready to sacrifice the country’s interests to maintain his power. Of course, Stalin and Putin used ideologies extensively for propagandistic purposes and for the legitimization of their personal power. But given the fact that ...

 

WORLD

Stars Make Obama Hit

WASHINGTON — Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am was so inspired by a speech given by White House hopeful Barack Obama that he turned it into a music video filled with celebrities singing the Democrat’s words.

Will.i.am says on his website that he made the song, entitled “Yes We Can,” after hearing the ...

 

SPORT

ENGLAND HANGS ON TO BEAT ITALY

LONDON — Jonny Wilkinson returned to something like his normal, composed self and lock Steve Borthwick led by example to help save England from a second successive Six Nations collapse at the weekend.

England must, however, improve dramatically if they ...

 

MAN CITY BEATS MAN UTD AS TEAMS HONOR MUNICH DEAD

MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City honored the memory of Manchester United’s tragic 1958 Busby Babes before showing no regard for their arch-rivals’ ...