Johnson's Russia List #6008 7 January 2002 davidjohnson@erols.com A CDI Project www.cdi.org [Note from David Johnson: 1. UPI: Russians mark Orthodox Christmas. 2. Washington Times/AFP: Bernard Besserglik, Russian Orthodox Christmas is today. 3. The Times (UK): Michael Binyon, Booming Russia has a happy Christmas. 4. Itar-Tass: Russian president sends Christmas wishes. 5. amazon.com book: Soviets: Pictures from the End of the U.S.S.R. by Shepard Sherbell, Serge Schmemann. 6. UPI: Poll: Russians long for pre-reform era. 7. Baltimore Sun: Douglas Birch, Fond memories of Soviet era linger. Upheavals since 1991 may tint perception of life in USSR. 8. UPI: Martin Sieff and Martin Walker, Year Ahead: Russia, China and the U.S. 9. Reuters: China, Russia vow to combat terror at home. 10. RIA Novosti: Toward Lyudmila Putin's birthday. 11. Michael Schihl: re 6004-Hypothermia. 12. Boston Globe: Graham Allison, Kazakhstan's antinuclear role. 13. Los Angeles Times: Maura Reynolds, Activists Probe Reported Killings in Chechnya. Caucasus: Russian soldiers allegedly gunned down civilians during season of revelry. 14. Financial Times (UK): Andrew Jack, Russian media set for landmark deals (re TV6)] ******* #1 Russians mark Orthodox Christmas MOSCOW, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Orthodox Christians on Monday celebrated Christmas as services were held in each of Russia's 14,000 churches. The Russian Orthodox Church follows the old Gregorian calendar, which places Christmas on Jan. 7. On Sunday, Patriarch Alexy II, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, held a Christmas Eve service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The service was attended by prominent politicians, public figures and was aired over Russian television. President Vladimir Putin on tour in central Russia released a Christmas statement. "I sincerely congratulate Orthodox Christians and followers of other Christian religion of Russia on Christmas," Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin. "This holiday invariably fills the hearts of million of Russians with good feelings and brings love, kindness and mercy to their families." The message said: "The Orthodox belief keeps playing a vital role in public morals. The Russian Orthodox Church together with representatives of other traditional religions does a lot for strengthening the spiritual health of our compatriots, developing patriotism, and promoting civil peace and concord. These activities deserve the deepest respect and support by the state administration." "I wish you health, happiness and all the very best," Putin concluded. ******** #2 Washington Times January 7, 2002 Russian Orthodox Christmas is today By Bernard Besserglik AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE MOSCOW — As the rest of the world takes down the mistletoe, clears out the empty bottles and resumes a normal working routine, Russians are getting down to a further bout of Christmas and New Year festivities. A decision by the Russian Orthodox Church some four centuries ago to stick to the old Julian calendar while their Catholic and Protestant counterparts switched to the Gregorian means that for many in Russia the merry-making is only now getting into its stride. Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II had a busy day yesterday with services throughout the day ahead of the official celebration of Christmas today. Morning and afternoon services in Moscow's new Christ the Savior Cathedral will be followed by the midnight service, which begins at 10 p.m. and traditionally lasts well into the small hours of Christmas morning. The city's Metro has laid on special trains to allow worshippers to return home late. The midnight liturgy will be televised in full on national television, and services will take place in the vast majority of the country's 14,000 Russian Orthodox churches. Even in the ruined Chechen capital, Grozny, where the local Orthodox church has long been reduced to a bullet-spattered shell, pensioner Natalya Filicheva, standing in for a visiting priest from the nearby Stavropol region who has fallen ill, intended to light her last three remaining candles and read from a psalter in the headlights of Russian army vehicles. Although some of the wealthier "new Russians" usually head early for the Mediterranean sun, the vast majority of Russians regard Dec. 25 as just another working day and see Jan. 1 — adopted as the start of the calendar year as recently as 1918 — as the signal for the festivities to begin. The evening of Dec. 31 is the traditional date for family reunions and present-giving, with Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost) and Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden) standing in for Father Christmas and his elves and reindeer. However, the Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7, which has only been a public holiday since the collapse of communism a decade ago, now runs a close second. Since there are no seats in Orthodox churches, rather than face an all-night vigil standing in a crammed church, many believers light and place their candle the day before and invite family and friends round for a traditional meal in the evening. Patriarch Alexei II will be back in action for a vespers service on Christmas afternoon, while for many Russians, particularly in the provinces, Christmas Day is to be spent outdoors whatever the weather, offering gifts of sweets and cakes to neighbors, or strolling, sleighing or engaging in snowball fights. But it's still not time to throw out the fir tree. A week later, on the night of Jan. 13-14, comes the Old New Year, another Julian left-over providing a pretext for further feasting, dancing and imbibing. ******** #3 The Times (UK) January 7, 2002 Booming Russia has a happy Christmas FROM MICHAEL BINYON IN MOSCOW RUSSIA celebrates Christmas with real festive cheer today. Many Russians have never had it so good. Last night hundreds of thousands of Russians, young and old, packed into the brightly lit churches — many recently restored and reopened — for the traditional midnight Mass on the eve of the day observed by the Orthodox Church as Christmas, now back as a public holiday. Gentle snow fell across the capital, reflecting the dazzling array of lights, street decorations and shop displays that are more lavish than anyone can remember. The Patriarch, Aleksiy II, pronounced his traditional blessing on the country and for many Russians his words have never seemed truer. The economy is booming, gnawing social problems are easing, crime is down, optimism is up and the political outlook is secure. Shoppers have certainly seized the moment. Thousands from the burgeoning middle class have been streaming into the glittering new shopping centres where formerly only foreigners and the wives of oligarchs were seen. The holiday season, which began long before the New Year, shows no sign of fading. Spending in Moscow has risen 10 per cent in a year, and was unaffected by September 11. For the flood of Russians travelling abroad the top new foreign destination is Egypt, where the muchreduced price of a package holiday is now less than a holiday in Russia. Russians are also flocking to resorts in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai. Europe remains popular, especially Spain and Germany. Some are venturing to the Caribbean. Thousands are also heading for Thailand, where the Russians are increasingly involved in the sex trade. Ikea, the Swedish furniture store, opened a second branch in central Moscow last month and was besieged by 45,000 people on the first day. Moscow accounts for 30 per cent of retail spending, and average wages, $600 (£415) a month, are almost six times those of other Russians. But the boom is across the country. The introduction of credit purchase has seen an explosion of demand. The vibrant domestic consumer market has helped the expansion. Last year the Russian economy grew by more than 8 per cent, boosted by firm oil and commodity prices. This year, even with the likely continuing slide in oil revenues, growth is projected at more than 5 per cent. Other indicators have astounded foreign economists, especially those at the International Monetary Fund who spent years in frustrating negotiations as Russia teetered on default. The Stock Market index grew by 60 per cent in 2001, the fastest-growing in the world. Budget deficits have disappeared and Moscow is paying off billions of dollars of debt ahead of schedule. Unemployment is forecast to fall from 7.1 to 6.3 million people. The shadow economy shrank from 20 to 18 per cent. Only inflation, still running at 18.5 per cent instead of the planned 14 per cent, remains stubbornly unfavourable. Political stability is the bedrock for growing business confidence, coupled with the rapid passage of legislation to encourage investment and help the large numbers who have been impoverished by the change from communism. Taxes have been simplified, lowered to a flat 13 per cent and have yielded vastly more money to the central budget. Capital flight is half what it was a year ago. Agriculture, the Achilles’ heel of almost every Russian government, is recovering with growth of 6per cent and a record grain harvest of 83 million tonnes last year. “We could only dream about this three years ago,” said Stanley Fisher, deputy head of the IMF. Russia still has a long way to go, as President Putin acknowledged in his New Year address. The economy is still only seventeenth in the world, with a GDP less than the Netherlands and only just above Switzerland. “We have achieved perhaps limited but tangible results,” Mr Putin told the nation. “We managed to maintain the trend of economic growth and at least to a small extent improve people’s lives.” His caution goes down well. Many Russians still complain about corruption, inequalities, the crumbling infrastructure, the super-rich and the dreadful conditions in the distant provinces. But Mr Putin has reaped a reward from the determination to change Russia. Once again, he has been voted Russia’s Man of the Year. ******* #4 Russian president sends Christmas wishes ITAR-TASS Moscow, 6 January: "I sincerely congratulate Orthodox Christians and followers of other Christian religions of Russia on Christmas," says a congratulatory message from President Vladimir Putin released by the Kremlin press service today. "This holiday invariably fills the hearts of millions of Russians with good feelings and brings love, kindness and mercy to their families. Obviously, the comprehensive development of our society and successful accomplishment of tasks our country has [to face] are impossible without centuries-old domestic spiritual and cultural heritage," the message runs. "The Orthodox belief keeps playing a vital role in public morals. The Russian Orthodox Church together with representatives of other traditional religions does a lot for strengthening the spiritual health of our compatriots, developing patriotism and promoting civil peace and concord. These activities deserve the deepest respect and support by the state administration. "I wish you health, happiness and all the very best." ******* #5 amazon.com Soviets: Pictures from the End of the U.S.S.R. by Shepard Sherbell, Serge Schmemann List Price: $39.95 Our Price: $27.96 You Save: $11.99 (30%) Availability: Usually ships within 2 to 3 days Hardcover - (November 1, 2001) 276 pages Editorial Reviews From Booklist *Starred Review* For three years (1991-93), photographer Sherbell, working for the German magazine Der Spiegel, canvased the Soviet Union for images of a society that many sensed was about to change drastically. Although his pictures reach American eyes 8 to 10 years later, that doesn't diminish their impact at all. All done in black and white, they are gray and grim, raw and rueful, lightened only occasionally by a smile, a celebration, a moment of prayer. Displayed thematically in chapters on everyday life, work, religious practice, imprisonment, coal and oil production, "Magnitka" (the largest, most polluting steelworks in the world), and change as Communism collapsed, they appear mostly at near-monumental scale, bled to the edges of 13-inch-tall pages. Reflecting the realities of most Soviet citizens, they are full of dilapidated mass housing, antiquated industrial facilities, barren shops, and hard manual labor. Sherbell tersely describes the situation and import of each picture in notes at the ends of the chapters, disclosing such frightening facts behind the images as that half the imprisoned are alcoholics and 40 percent of teenage prisoners come from fatherless families, that the environmental damage wreaked by the huge Sakhalin Island oil fields during 70 years' operation may require 80 years to repair even minimally, and that life expectancy in many parts of the old union was only 50 years when the pictures were made. The last sentence in the book asks, "Will this ever become a 'normal country'?" Unfortunately, the jury is still out on that question. Ray Olson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved from the introduction by Serge Schmemann "I know that time spent in . . . that black-and-white world that Shepard Sherbell has captured will stay with me forever." Book Description This unparalleled collection of photographs documents the years surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through the camera lens Shepard Sherbell tells a story that language alone cannot. He captures in more than 200 black-and-white images the previously unseen reality of everyday life in the fifteen former Soviet republics. In these photographs--sometimes humorous, amazing, or troubling, always enthralling--Sherbell offers an unprecedented view of people caught in the crucial moment of transition between communism and capitalism, repression and freedom, security and anarchy. On assignment for the German weekly Der Spiegel, Sherbell traveled throughout the dismantled Soviet Union from 1990 to 1993 with more freedom than a citizen could have achieved. Unrestricted in his access to subject matter, he recorded the faces and lives of those who inhabit what was once a superpower. Mothers, mine workers, prisoners, farmers, housewives, children--Sherbell shows us without sentimentality how life looked for a people whose awe-inspiring capacity to survive has been--and continues to be--tested. Serge Schmemann provides a general retrospective and moving introduction to the book. From the Publisher Support for the publication of this book was provided by Corbis and by Canon USA About the Author Shepard Sherbell is a documentary photographer represented by Saba Photos, Inc. For more than twenty-five years he has been based in London, Paris, Washington, Prague, Moscow, and now New York. Among the many awards he has received for his work are those from the Canon Photo Essayist Award, Overseas Press Club of America, National Press Photographers' Association/University of Missouri Pictures of the Year, White House News Photographers' Association, and Communication Arts. Serge Schmemann is deputy foreign editor of the New York Times. He has served as New York Times Bureau Chief in Moscow and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1990. ******* #6 Poll: Russians long for pre-reform era MOSCOW, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- The majority of Russians prefer the lives they had lived before the country's stormy economic reforms were launched in 1991, a poll said Sunday. The survey, conducted by ROMIR-Gallup International public opinion research group, queried 2,000 respondents throughout Russia on New Year's Eve. According to the poll results, 55.1 percent of those asked said they wished they could have their pre-reform living standard returned. Only 32.6 percent said they preferred their present lives. The remaining respondents were undecided. The package of social and economic reforms, evolving chiefly from the Russian government's attempt to drop communist state planning and introduce a market economy, saw millions of Russians hit by poverty and unemployment. The age group most affected are the pensioners, who the reforms have deprived of many of the Communist-era social benefits, forcing them to make ends meet on meager pensions. ****** #7 Baltimore Sun January 7, 2001 Fond memories of Soviet era linger Upheavals since 1991 may tint perception of life in USSR By Douglas Birch Sun Foreign Staff MOSCOW -- Theirs was the best life the old Soviet Union had to offer. The newspaper Soviet Weekly published a story about them in September 1979 called "Meet the Family, Moscow Style." Vasily Vasilyonok, 36, was building an electric car to escort marathoners in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. His wife, Irina, 31, was designing traditional costumes for her nation's Olympic athletes. Their 6-year-old twins -- Yulia and Vasily Jr. -- were studying music at their day-care center, and dreaming of becoming artists and sports stars. Soviet Weekly described their life in a brand-new apartment in southern Moscow. "So you see, the Vasilyonoks have a lot going for them -- a typical Moscow family with confidence in the future and a lively interest in their careers and family," the English-language newspaper gushed. The Soviet Union and its citizens seemed to have a glorious future. Gathered around a kitchen table a few days ago, Irina, Vasily Jr. and Yulia saw the Soviet Weekly article for the first time. Listening to it translated into Russian, Irina closed her eyes and nodded dreamily at the description of the subsidized day care, cheap public transportation and good public schools. "In those days, it was easier to live," sighed the blonde, blue-eyed woman, now 52. "It was a warm and cloudless life." Ten years after the fall of communism, opinion polls show that most Russians -- especially those middle-aged or older -- are nostalgic about Soviet times. That might baffle many Westerners, who think only of the Soviet Union's brutal repression of its citizens. But the story of the Vasilyonok family might help explain why so many here look back fondly on the days of totalitarian rule. Yulia, now 28 and a pediatrician at one of Moscow's most prestigious hospitals, pored over the article's photos of the family. "I would like to go back to that life, if only for a short period," said the intense young physician, who is married and has a 2 1/2 -year-old son. Then she considered it, and added: "If I could, I would have stayed in that life." Vasily Jr., who is a few minutes younger than his sister, listened to his mother and sister praise the Soviet days. His first response was sarcastic. "Oh yes, if we had not been interfered with by the Americans, we would have long ago built communism in the whole of the world," he said. Shaking his head, he picked up the yellowed newspaper clipping. Communism was regimented, he said, and imposed a gray, dreary uniformity on everyone and everything. "After the Soviet Union fell," he said, "life became much more joyful and energetic." "On the contrary," Yulia said, correcting her little brother. "Previously, it was much better." In a poll taken in November, more than half of Russians surveyed agreed with this statement: "Things would be better today if there had been no perestroika" -- the last efforts to reform the communist system that preceded its collapse. Why the stubborn fondness for the Soviet state? Sociologists and political scientists say the economic failures of the new, more democratic Russia are chiefly to blame. Life seemed better in Soviet times, Vasily Jr. suggested, because people did not realize how poor they were. "Why it was so good and people were so happy?" he said. "Because there was an iron curtain and we didn't know what consumer goods there were on the other side of the curtain." In Soviet times, there was officially no unemployment, but work was compulsory. Housing was cheap, but apartments were small, shoddy and hard to find. Western newspapers, magazines and books were banned or restricted. Soviet families didn't know that their counterparts in the West lived much better -- that many owned homes and shopped at well-stocked supermarkets and sprawling malls. Soviet citizens were fed a steady diet of propaganda, and Soviet Weekly's article on the Vasilyonoks was part of that fare. It cast everything in an implausibly rosy glow. ("Winter snow is a joy to the Vasilyonoks -- especially when there's a cozy flat to return to!") Yet, even considering the advantage of two decades of hindsight, Irina insists that it was all true. By many measures, the family had a comfortable life. The Vasilyonoks lived south of the center of Moscow, surrounded by gardens and a stroll from a state-supported day care center. They paid the equivalent of $76 a month for rent and utilities for their two-bedroom apartment. They took state-subsidized vacations at Black Sea resorts and occasionally went skiing in the Caucasus mountains. "Even the little ones like skiing and walking and the mountain air does wonders for them all," the newspaper declared. They were saving for the ultimate luxury for an ordinary Soviet family: a boxy Zhiguli car. The Vasilyonoks couldn't travel abroad. Nor were they permitted to read certain books or espouse certain political beliefs. But why should they embrace heretical views? Vasily Sr. was a Communist Party member, a privileged position enjoyed by only 5 percent of Soviet citizens. Millions had been "repressed" -- executed or exiled to gulags -- during Stalin's brutal reign. But the Vasilyonoks hadn't known any of them. Both parents had university degrees and professional jobs. Together, they earned 508 rubles a month -- double what most Soviets made at the time. At official exchange rates, that is the equivalent of about $18,500 a year in 2001 dollars -- still an upper-middle-class income by Russian standards. They were also an unusually attractive young family -- so much so that their pictures and story, first published in the weekly paper, were used in a series of textbooks designed to teach Russian to foreigners. As the Soviet economy faltered in the 1980s and shortages of food and clothing became common even in Moscow, the Vasilyonoks adapted and survived. Like many of their neighbors, they raised vegetables at a dacha, or country house, and bought food through a network of connections at home and at work. But the stress of those times took a toll. The Vasilyonoks divorced in 1988. The Soviet Union would dissolve three years later. In August 1991, Vasily Jr. was a student at Moscow State University, working part time at an office building in downtown Moscow, when he heard a rumbling sound outside. He went to the window and saw a column of tanks rolling down the broad avenue. He knew instantly what it meant: Communist Party hard-liners were trying to crush President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's efforts at reforming the Soviet state. He switched on a television: all the stations were broadcasting a taped performance of a classic Russian ballet. "After that, nobody liked Swan Lake anymore," he said. The Soviet Union's end signaled the start of a long economic slump. Prices rose 10 times faster than wages. Industrial output fell almost 50 percent. Millions of people were laid off. Pensioners saw their life savings wiped out. Official corruption flourished. As state financial support for students dwindled, Vasily Jr. was forced to shift from full-time to part-time studies. He was married and had a child while still in school, which exempted him from the draft and military duty in Chechnya. Vasily barely managed to hang onto his job at a bank in 1998, when many banks collapsed. Still, he never lost faith that Russia could make the transition to a modern democratic society. "I believed that everything would be all right," he said. "I still believe it." While still a teen-ager, Yulia decided to become a pediatrician. But while in medical school, she saw the state salaries of physicians plummet. Public hospitals deteriorated. Worse, she said, health care workers became cynical. Soviet doctors and nurses had cared about their patients, she said. That no longer seemed true. "If somebody was told to go and stay on extra hours at the hospital, people would gladly do that, without extra pay," she said. Now, money seems to drive medical care. After his divorce, Vasily Sr. continued to work at an auto factory in Moscow -- eventually becoming chief engineer. But the Russian auto industry was hard hit by the Soviet Union's dissolution. He collapsed and died of a heart attack in 1998 at age 54 while visiting his mother's grave. Irina has prospered. She remarried in 1988; she and her second husband -- who works for an international trading firm -- have a 13-year-old son. They live in a lavishly renovated apartment with a view of the Moscow River, in a building -- originally built to house Soviet generals -- where some apartments rent for $3,000 a month. She quit her state job in the early 1990s and earns a substantial income freelancing as an interior designer for wealthy "New Russians," building palatial houses outside Moscow. What is the biggest change in her life? She says she has far more creative freedom than she did 22 years ago. In Soviet times, every apartment was laid out according to one of several floor plans, and tenants were forbidden to make structural changes. "Now, it depends on your imagination," she said. "You can make beautiful designs if you have imagination." Yet she values her prosperity and creative freedom less, it seems, than the security that the old system provided. When she talked about the changes in Russia, bitterness crept into her voice. "Everything was destroyed," she said at one point. "Step by step. Everything was ruined." Were things better under communism? She considered the question. "No, you can't say that things were better," she said. Neither were they that much worse. "You can't compare then and now." In 1979, she acknowledged, she was younger and ambitious. Her children were just starting school. Her life was still a series of possibilities. In lamenting the passing of the Soviet state, she said, she might also be mourning her lost youth. ******* #8 Year Ahead: Russia, China and the U.S. By Martin Sieff and Martin Walker WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Russia, as America's old rival for global power, and China as the most likely challenger to American dominance in the future, each begin the new year in unusual harmony with the United States. China has signed up for the U.S.-dominated global economic system by joining the World Trade Organization, and Russia wants to be next in line. Washington, Moscow and Beijing all sing from U.S. President George W. Bush's new anti-terrorism hymnbook. Russia and America backed China's successful bid to host the 2008 Olympics, almost as important a symbol for Beijing's new global status as joining the WTO. But that's where the common factors stop. The American economy is stalled. Russia is growing healthily after finally clambering from its lost decade of post-Communist adjustment. And China's phenomenal boom continues, at least according to the official statistics that boast another year of close to 8 percent growth in gross domestic product. The country's wealth is doubling every eight years. Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated exactly two years in office on New Year's Day by quietly achieving several crucial goals that Western pundits had confidently agreed were impossible. He finally pushed through legislation opening the way for a genuine free market in land sales. He has successfully re-established strong central control over the regions, ending a long slide toward disintegration that far preceded the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. And he has presided over a solid economic recovery based on high global oil prices -- but far from entirely dependent upon them. Putin has re-established Russia as one of the world's great energy arbiters. His country today provides 10 percent of global oil exports, a figure only exceeded by Saudi Arabia. The 300 percent rise in global oil prices between 1998 and 2001 provided the basis, along with the August 1998 ruble devaluation, to re-establish Russian finances. Moreover, Russia's shifting oil policies reflect its wider strategic opportunities and dilemmas; Putin has strengthened ties with both East and West and so far has fluctuated between making any decisive commitment to either. His government's decision at the end of last year to go along with the latest oil output reduction agreement of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reflected this ambiguity. In the short term, Russia's decision to cooperate with OPEC on cutting back production by 150,000 barrels a day to strengthen global oil prices was a move against the West and in support of Third World, predominantly Muslim nations, many of them radical. But Russian oil output drops by about that amount during the winter months anyway, because so much of it is produced from remote Siberian sources literally inaccessible in winter months even with the most modern technology. Putin therefore maintains the option of increasing oil supplies to the global energy market in the spring. That would fulfill the satisfying, mutually compatible goals of expanding market share and therefore long-term income at the expense of the Saudis while undermining them financially and therefore destabilizing them at the same time. And none of it would carry any risks of confrontation with the United States. Currently, Putin's policy toward the United States appears poised on a knife-edge of either indecision or deliberate ambiguity, keeping all options open. On the one hand, he has won Bush's approval for Russia to become virtually the 20th member of NATO. That would transform the security situation in Europe and defuse Russian fear and resentment at the alliance's eastward expansion since 1997. It also would outflank new NATO members -- and former Soviet satellites and Warsaw Pact members -- Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. They can hardly look to NATO as a protection against Russia when Russia may have a more powerful say in the alliance's innermost council chambers than they have themselves. However, Putin was damaged by Bush's decision unilaterally to go ahead with pulling the United States out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to clear the way for development of an eventual multi-tiered ABM shield against missiles fired from so-called "rogue nations." So the Russian leader is still keeping his options open for playing a key role in an anti-American, balancing Eurasian coalition as well. He has dispatched Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to Beijing to attend a coordinating meeting Monday of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, also known as the Shanghai Pact. That organization, established in Shanghai on June 15, includes the four Central Asian Islamic former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan along with Russia and China. The Beijing meeting has been presented and reported as being intended to discuss the fight against Islamic militancy in Central Asia. But the organization also had as its not-at-all concealed aim the rolling back of U.S. influence in Central Asia. Aligning with China to squeeze U.S. influence out of Central Asia also makes sense if Putin continues on his systematic policy of smothering independent electronic mass media journalism and opinion at home. Currently Russia's last truly independent television channel, TV6, owned by billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky, is fighting a last-ditch legal battle to stay open. A minority shareholder in the channel, the pension fund closely linked to Russia's biggest oil producing corporation Lukoil, successfully won a Moscow court ruling in November that TV6 should be shut down. On Dec. 29, the Federal Arbitration Court overturned that order and ordered the dispute to be re-examined. That ruling does not save TV6 but gives it at least a new breathing space. Still, the direction of media policy under Putin is clear. The state is systematically snuffing out any possibility of independent radio or television commentary or expression through powerful private sector companies with close ties to the Kremlin. And so far, this drive has provoked little protest from the Russian public. A December opinion poll recorded 73 percent approval ratings for the president, the Interfax news agency reported. Russia still has a long way to go. Its per capita gross domestic product remains a derisory $2,000 per head as opposed to $30,000 in the United States. But the trend is currently upward. A whopping 8.3 percent GDP growth rate was reported in 2000 and figures for 2001 are expected to show 5.5 percent growth on top of that. Per capita income growth in 2001 is expected to turn out to be even more, around 9.1 percent. This optimism has filtered down to ordinary Russians. Stores in Moscow and other major cities have reported one of the biggest spending booms ever. Well-off middle class Russians are still stocking up on a colossal scale with consumer durables such as refrigerators, color televisions and modern furniture. And in contrast to the Boris Yeltsin era, domestic rather than foreign businesses are the beneficiaries of this surge in consumer demand. But Russia's economic recovery is dwarfed by the progress of China. Last year was the year that China overtook Italy to become the world's sixth biggest economy. This year, it should overtake France. By 2005, it hopes to overtake Britain. And by 2010 -- if the growth continues -- Germany and Japan could both be trailing in China's economic wake. Or it could all go horribly wrong. The real Chinese economy, with an estimated 100 million unemployed peasants looking for work in China's cities and a stagnant rural economy dreading the impact of cheap food imports through the WTO, looks far less healthy. And the global slowdown has hurt China's export-led growth strategy. "China's export engine has stalled," wrote Morgan Stanley economist Andy Xie in a sobering recent analysis. "State investment now accounts for three-quarters of gross capital formation, having been pushed up for three years to spur the economy. Investment will not be able to accelerate fast enough in the next two quarters to offset export weakness." China is grappling with three internal revolutions simultaneously. The first is the breakneck pace of economic change, fuelled by 16 years of GDP growth at rates of up to 10 percent a year. This has created a class of new rich, an even larger and growing middle class, and a new openness to the outside world with 25 million Chinese now linked to the Internet. These are the people, articulate and connected and with the self-confidence to defend their hard-won new status, whose prosperity is most at risk from an American slowdown. The second revolution is the social dislocation that has come with the economic change. Growth has hugely benefited the coastal regions around Shanghai and Canton, but the vast inland countryside with the bulk of the population has not kept pace. The result has been some 100 million Chinese migrating to the cities in search of work -- just as the Beijing government is trying to slim down or close the vast and obsolete state-owned industries that have been shedding some 4 million jobs a year. Inevitably, there have been outbursts, quickly suppressed, of labor unrest. Although there are reports of police baton charges and a sudden spate of 30 bombings in six cities in 10 days in December, few details leak out. One veteran labor activist, Zheng Shanguang, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for telling the U.S.-backed Voice of Free Asia radio about rural protests. An internal Chinese Communist party document, "On Several Serious Issues Facing Us," was leaked last year. It cited 230 incidents of mobs laying siege to party and government offices in 82 cities, with 5,500 party officials injured or even killed. "Any factors that could jeopardize stability must be annihilated in the early stages," Chinese President Jiang Zemin declared in a nationally televised address. These changes are about to speed up, as China joins the World Trade Organization, which requires China to open its markets and financial system to outside competition. The aging political leaders in Beijing have gritted their teeth and decided to go ahead with China's integration into the global economy, even though it means further weakening their grip on the economy. They have little choice. Every year, 9 million Chinese are added to the work force. To find them jobs, under the calculations long used by Beijing planners, requires an annual GDP growth rate of at least 8 per cent -- a target that China has now missed for the past three years. Like men on a treadmill which runs a little faster every day, Beijing's leaders are trapped, committed to WTO membership as the only way to keep the economy growing, whatever the social and political implications. So China's third revolution is the growing disconnect between the authoritarian political leadership which is trying to maintain an unfree society by embracing free markets and free trade, and the new generation of ambitious and Internet-linked people they rule. There is a Chinese public opinion, and it has little to do with the innocent democratic yearnings of the Tienanmen Square demonstrators of 1989. It was on display in the angry crowds demonstrating outside the U.S. Embassy after the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by mistake during the Kosovo war, the furious anti-American demonstrations during the spy plane crisis, and by the public pressure for reunification with Taiwan. There is a new mood of nationalism surging in China (as it did in other fast-growing and authoritarian economies, like Germany before 1914), which already is a constraint upon Beijing's leaders who are trying to manage a complex foreign policy with Taiwan and the United States. So the event to watch this year will be the 16th Party Congress in October, when the current leadership will start handing power to the coming "Fourth Generation" of 50-something leaders like vice premier Wen Jiabao and Vice President Hu Jintao. For moderate reformers and believers in economic growth like the current leader, Jiang, and Premier Zhu Rongji, the question is whether the fast re-arming and modernizing Chinese military will defer to the new generation. That is why most observers expect Jiang to keep his hands on the reins of power as head of the Central Military Coalition. And despite China's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, some ominous military tensions are swirling. The presence of American troops near China's western frontiers in oil-rich Central Asia, along with the traditional U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea and new U.S. weapons being delivered to Taiwan, may well look from Beijing's standpoint like encirclement. The deeper concern for U.S. policy-makers is that they are now, after the Afghan war and the big Western investments in the oil-rich Caspian basin, deeply involved in that part of the world where Russian and Chinese interests meet. The heart of Eurasia, the hard land that spawned global conquerors like Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, is the dangerous neighborhood where the cultures of China, of Islam and Russia all meet -- and often clashed even before the great oil discoveries of the 1990s. And now the United States is involved as well. (Martin Sieff is chief news analyst for United Press International and Martin Walker is the news service's chief international correspondent.) ****** #9 China, Russia vow to combat terror at home BEIJING, Jan 7 (Reuters) - China, Russia and four Central Asian nations pledged on Monday to combat terrorism in all forms, including at home, saying the global war on terror should have no double standards. Foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), whose own anti-terror agenda has been overshadowed since the U.S.-led war on terrorism and the Afghan conflict, made the pledges in a joint statement during a one-day meeting in Beijing. "Member states hold that the fight against terrorism should be carried out on all levels -- globally, regionally, and nationally -- free of bias and with no double standards," the joint statement said. The four Central Asian members of the group are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. China and Russia have supported the U.S.-led war on terrorism in large part due to their concerns over Muslim separatists in their own countries. "All members are supportive of the positions and efforts respectively of China concerning East Turkestan terrorists and of Russia concerning Chechen terrorists, and regard these efforts as part and parcel of the international fight against terrorism," Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said in a speech after the statement was signed. Beijing has stepped up a crackdown on the Uighur ethnic minority group from its northwest which it says has designs to build an independent state called East Turkestan. Analysts saw the meeting as a bid by China to reassert its influence in Central Asia with the winding down of the war in Afghanistan, which has brought U.S. troops into the back yards of all six countries. The group said there should be no interference in the internal affairs of post-Taliban Afghanistan and stressed the role of the United Nations in keeping the peace. "Any attempt to impose a particular management method on Afghanistan or to bring it under certain influences will bring new crisis for Afghanistan and neighbouring regions," the joint statement said. "We emphasise international security forces must cooperate closely with the Afghan interim government, should act under the authorisation of the U.N. Security Council, and with the approval of the legal Afghanistan government," it said. Founded in 1996 with the relatively modest aim of brokering border disputes, the group formerly known as the Shanghai Five, had evolved into what many analysts saw as a dynamic alliance to stabilise common borders and limit growth of separatist groups. But since the September 11 attacks on the United States and war on Afghanistan, the group has seen its anti-terror agenda coopted, leaving it little more than a partner to the broad fight against terror led by the United States, analysts said. ******* #10 RUSSIA * PRESIDENT * WIFE * DATE * REFERENCE RIA Novosti January 6, 2002 /Toward Lyudmila Putin's birthday/ The Russian president's wife Lyudmila Putin (nee Shkrebneva) was born in Kaliningrad on January 6, 1957, finished a secondary school in 1975 to undergo a course at a technical college, and graduated from the Leningrad State University in 1986 where she majored as a philology student of Spanish and French. Later, when her husband stayed in Germany on business assignment, she joined him and learnt German on her own. Once getting a school-leaving certificate, she practiced temporarily such jobs as a postwoman, then - a turner apprentice at the Kaliningrad Torgmash works with becoming a skilled turner in a short while, a nurse at the city hospital, the chief of an amateur drama studio for teenagers, an accompanist, a stewardess on internal routes in the Kaliningrad air company. Shortly after meeting her future husband Vladimir Putin in Leningrad, she, at the age of 22, moved to the city to enter the preparatory department of Leningrad State University and live at a student dormitory. She was a third-year student when she married Vladimir Putin, an intelligence officer then. Lyudmila moved with her husband and daughter Masha to Dresden in the end of the '80s where their second daughter Katya was born. As the president's wife, Lyudmila Putin is engaged in cultural and welfare affairs, including her active work at the Centre for support, development and dissemination of the Russian language in Russia, former Soviet republics and other European countries. Friends and acquaintances describe Lyudmila Putin as a very modest, amiable woman alien to make-up and devoted to her household, a person of integrity. According to Lyudmila, the role of the first lady meeting all the expectations is very difficult for her. "It is very hard to remain oneself in such circumstances and what can be more important?" she wonders. In her foreign trips, she is attracted by discovering a lot for herself and spreading knowledge about modern Russia. "When heads of state meet, they can see through each other better and learn more about their countries," said Lyudmila Putin. ****** #11 From: "michael schihl" Subject: Regarding Issue #6004-Hypothermia Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 I felt compelled to respond to this article as this is something that I personally witnessed while living in Moscow. I once called skoraia pomoshch' for a bomzh who was bleeding heavily and was lying on the steps to a metro entrance. The operator had no interest in the call. Perhaps it was because I am a foreigner, but I suspect it was due to a more general apathy towards homeless people. So even if passers-by lose their apathy, the ambulance dispatchers and ambulance workers will also have to be trained to care. I somehow do not seeing this happening soon in Moscow, much less in the rest of Russia. ******* #12 Boston Globe January 6, 2002 Kazakhstan's antinuclear role By Graham Allison WHEN KAZAKHSTAN is mentioned, most people think of one thing: oil. As the principal source of Caspian energy, Kazakhstan supplies world markets directly through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. Opened in September, this pipeline has a capacity of 1 million barrels a day. Furthermore, Kashagan field has been acclaimed as the most significant new discovery of reserves in the past quarter-century. When President Bush met with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the White House in December, they discussed Kazakhstan's new role in world energy and the campaign against terrorism. The meeting resulted in a joint statement that affirmed their strategic partnership and a US intention to help Kazakhstan integrate more fully into the global economy. While this meeting addressed important goals, it should also have underlined the significant role Kazakhstan has played in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Nazarbayev now has an opportunity to extend that legacy by leading the negotiations for the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty. In his recent book, ''Epicenter of Peace,'' Nazarbayev affirms Kazakhstan's pride in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Semipalatinsk Soviet nuclear testing facility in northeastern Kazakhstan saw more above-ground and underground nuclear tests than any other site on earth. As a result, more than 300,000 people in the region suffer serious health effects from exposure to radiation. Acutely aware of these consequences, Nazarbayev was the first president among newly independent former Soviet states to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Central Asian region. In theory, Kazakhstan could have emerged as one of the world's nuclear superpowers. Had it taken control of the more than 1,400 nuclear warheads left on its territory when the Soviet Union disappeared, it would commanded an arsenal larger than those of the United Kingdom, France, and China combined. Most of these warheads stood atop missiles aimed at targets in the United States. Instead, Kazakhstan volunteered to return all nuclear weapons to Russia, signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and entered the world as a nonnuclear state. There are no nuclear weapons in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is now in an ideal position to exercise leadership in the campaign to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nazarbayev has long been a vigorous supporter of the creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone in Central Asia. On Feb. 27, 1997, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Almaty Declaration, which proclaimed their intention to make Central Asia a territory free of nuclear arms. Unfortunately, this campaign has encountered difficulties over the last several years, especially because of the 1992 Tashkent Treaty, a collective security agreement originally designed for the states of the former Soviet Union. Russia is the only signatory that believes that this treaty would allow it to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to Central Asia in order to deal with threats emanating from the region. Over the last few years, Central Asian members of the Tashkent Treaty expressed their desire to restrict the provisions of the agreement in order to allow for the complete denuclearization of the region. Russia, however, has voiced objections. As the Central Asian leader with the most accomplished record on nonproliferation issues, Nazarbayev must take the lead to overcome Russia's objections to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone. Bush could give him a hand. The advantages of creating a stable region free of nuclear threat far outweigh whatever tactical advantages might be gained from a redeployment of nuclear weapons in Central Asia. As the recent campaign in Afghanistan has demonstrated, nuclear weapons have no useful role in the region. During Nazarbayev's visit to Washington, the United States and Kazakhstan made significant progress by reaffirming their shared commitment to fighting terrorism and guaranteeing international energy supplies. Building upon that foundation, the two presidents should now instruct their governments to overcome remaining obstacles to assure that the nexus between Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan remains free of nuclear weapons. Graham Allison is director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School. ******* #13 Los Angeles Times January 7, 2002 Activists Probe Reported Killings in Chechnya Caucasus: Russian soldiers allegedly gunned down civilians during season of revelry. By MAURA REYNOLDS, TIMES STAFF WRITER MOSCOW -- Human rights workers are collecting what they describe as mounting evidence that Russian troops committed unjustified killings and other abuses during military operations in two towns in separatist Chechnya over the last eight days. Usam Baisayev, deputy director of the regional office of the Russian human rights group Memorial, said the first military operation began in the town of Tsotsin-Yurt on Dec. 30 and appeared to target Chechen men. "The soldiers kept shooting at any Chechen male they saw for four days in a row," Baisayev said from his office in the city of Nazran, on the border with Chechnya. "They did not even bother to figure out whether the person they were about to deprive of life is or was a member of a rebel gang." The operations began as Russia shut down for the country's biggest holidays--New Year's Day on Jan. 1 and Orthodox Christmas, which is observed today. Most newspapers stop printing during the period, and TV news broadcasts are reduced. Russian military officials have issued perfunctory reports about the operations, saying the troops are rooting out rebels hiding among the civilian population. The official reports have said Russian troops "destroyed" 100 rebels, including several field commanders, during a "special operation" in Tsotsin-Yurt. They have not mentioned any detentions or arrests; officially, suspected rebels are supposed to be taken into custody during an investigation into their activities. The second operation began in the town of Argun on Thursday to hunt down as many as 30 alleged rebels who may have escaped from Tsotsin-Yurt, according to official reports. No civilian was allowed into or out of Argun for a fourth day Sunday. "The ring around militants is getting tighter," Col. Gen. Georgy Shpak, commander of Russia's paratroop force, told the Itar-Tass news agency Friday. "The troops are intensifying special operations because it is easier to fight militants in winter." Russian officials say the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, is overseeing the Argun operation along with military and civilian prosecutors. They have reported that 38 suspected rebels have been detained there. "I have been there myself today," Vsevolod Chernov, the chief prosecutor of Chechnya, said in an interview broadcast Sunday on the TV-6 network. "There have been no complaints from the people. Military and local prosecutors as well as representatives of the public--elders from the city of Argun--are taking part in the operation." Difficult to Verify Russian, Rebel Accounts Information about events in Chechnya is often fragmentary and unverifiable because of poor communications and a lack of impartial observers. Most Russian news reports are based on official statements from military headquarters; the Chechen rebels' Web site routinely exaggerates rebel gains. Information from other Chechen sources often takes days or weeks to trickle out, usually via residents who leave the republic on foot. Kheda Saratova, an investigator with Memorial, spent three days in Tsotsin-Yurt before leaving Saturday and collected evidence that at least 37 civilians were killed by Russian troops. She said that in order to retrieve the bodies, relatives of the victims were forced to sign a statement acknowledging that their loved ones were members of rebel groups. "Troops kill peaceful civilians and then try to pass them off as rebels," she said in a telephone interview after reaching Nazran, in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia. "The military just grab anyone who is at hand, and then the rest of the world has to trust their 'professionalism' when they say these people were bandits." Saratova cited the case of 37-year-old Musa Ismailov, a town mullah, who was taken away by Russian soldiers in Tsotsin-Yurt on Dec. 30. As the troops escorted him out the door, his 36-year-old wife, Malika, saw that one of his ears had been cut off and that he was bleeding from the wound. She tried to follow him, but a soldier threatened to shoot her. Later, to retrieve her husband's body, she had to pay 1,000 rubles, or about $33, to federal troops and sign a document saying he had been a rebel fighter. "This pretty much makes all members of our family fighters automatically," the woman told Saratova, who transcribed the interview. "And now I am afraid . . . that my 17-year-old son will take up a gun and will try to avenge his father's death. And I will not be able to stop my son. In fact, most of the people who are fighting against the federals today and whom the federals call bandits are ordinary people who want to avenge their relatives who were unjustly slaughtered by the federal troops." Theater Commander Reportedly Was Present Saratova said residents reported that many of the Russian soldiers, perhaps because of New Year's revelry, appeared to be drunk during the operations. She also said the troops had burned an unknown number of corpses on the town outskirts. "The entire town reeks of burned flesh and putrefaction," she said. Saratova also said several residents reported seeing the commander of Russia's troops in Chechnya, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi, in Tsotsin-Yurt during the operation. Moltenskoi was also commander during document sweeps, or zachistka operations, in the Chechen villages of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya in July that were denounced as cruel and wanton even by pro-Kremlin officials in the region. Chechens and human rights workers say Russia's support for the United States' anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan has had the side effect of quelling international criticism of continuing Russian misdeeds in Chechnya. "Most of the reports coming these days from [Tsotsin-Yurt] sound very true," said Andrei A. Piontkovsky, director of the Independent Institute for Strategic Studies. "Things that would several years ago make one's hair stand on end today sound utterly commonplace. "Because Russia has turned out to be a very useful and instrumental ally of the U.S. in fighting international terrorism, the West has completely turned a blind eye to what is happening in Chechnya . . . ," he continued. "In the past, the West only meekly complained about large-scale human rights violations in Chechnya. After Sept. 11, even these complaints and humble criticism stopped. Now, everything is quiet, and Russia feels it has got a free hand to do whatever it wants with Chechnya." Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report. ****** #14 Financial Times (UK) 7 January 2002 Russian media set for landmark deals By Andrew Jack in Moscow Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian businessman closely linked to Boris Yeltsin, the former president, is in discussions with a Moscow-based fund management company to sell his majority stake in television network TV6 - a deal that could be worth up to $200m. The talks come as Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, is finalising a report with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, its investment banking advisers, on the sale of its stake in NTV, Russia's largest non-state channel, and other media businesses that were part of the empire of Vladimir Gusinsky, the exiled Russian media tycoon. The two transactions represent important turning points in the struggle for control of the Russian media amid concerns that diversity in ownership and freedom of expression are being threatened under the regime of President Vladimir Putin. Mr Berezovsky is understood to be in talks with TPG Aurora, a fund (the partners of which have already invested in the Russian version of the MTV musical network), to sell his 75 per cent stake in TV6 for about $140m, with a further payment based on how the network performs financially. However, some individuals close to TV6 expressed doubts that the deal would be finalised. The talks follow pressure by Lukoil, Russia's largest oil producer, to force TV6 into liquidation after claiming that the network is insolvent and that Mr Berezovsky acted unfairly in appointing a new management team last summer. Lukoil, via its pension fund Lukoil Garant, has a 15 per cent stake in TV6, with the remainder held by organisations linked to the city of Moscow. It argues it is acting purely on commercial grounds, but Mr Berezovsky and his TV6 management team say the oil company's move is the result of political pressure from the Kremlin. Lukoil took legal action after Mr Berezovsky appointed Yevgeny Kiselyov, a former star presenter and managing director of NTV, to TV6 along with many of his senior colleagues. The nominations came after Gazprom took charge of NTV in April after a similar battle for control involving court cases that, it argued, were commercial in nature but Mr Gusinsky said were an attempt by the Kremlin to crush freedom of speech. Mr Putin has argued that both disputes are commercial in nature while stressing he believes the best way for the Russian media to be independent is for it to be economically self-sufficient and free from the control of influential oligarchs who controlled it for much of the 1990s. ******