The Moscow Times

Market Matters: As Conflict Ends, Markets on Road to Recovery
After tumbling to its lowest point in almost two years on Tuesday, Russia's MICEX Index began to slowly claw its way back over the rest of the week, suggesting a possible end to the volatility that has plagued the country's markets since tensions erupted between Russia and Georgia on Aug. 8.

News

TNK-BP Dispute Headed To Court
By Tim Wall / Staff Writer The boardroom battle at TNK-BP descended into outright mudslinging over the long holiday break, with the Russian shareholders threatening to have BP-nominated directors disbarred by a Moscow court this week and BP’s chairman accusing them of using illegal “corporate raiding” tactics.

Barring 'Miracle,' eXile Is 'Dead'
By Alexander Osipovich / Staff Writer The eXile, Moscow’s notorious English-language alternative biweekly, is shutting down after its investors became frightened by a government inspection and withdrew their funding, the newspaper’s editors said.

Congress Questioning Nuclear Pact
Reuters U.S. lawmakers troubled by Russia's help for Iran's nuclear program said Thursday that they did not trust Russia enough to approve a pact on civilian nuclear cooperation with Moscow.

Medvedev Complains of Media Clampdown
Reuters esident Dmitry Medvedev has accused unidentified foreign governments of deliberately clamping down on Russian-language media, and he has warned that the Kremlin could retaliate.

Irish Voters Reject EU Reform Treaty
The Associated Press Ireland's voters have dealt the European Union a stunning diplomatic setback by rejecting its blueprint for reform in referendum results announced Friday.

Karzai May Send Forces To Pakistan
The Associated Press Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send troops across the border to fight militants in Pakistan, a forceful warning to insurgents and the Pakistani government that his country is fed up with crossborder attacks.

Mugabe Set To Fight Opposition
Reuters President Robert Mugabe vowed on Saturday that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change would never rule Zimbabwe and that he was prepared to fight to keep them from taking power.

Google's Brin Signs Up for Space Adventure
By David B. Caruso / The Associated Press A company that sends wealthy tourists into space aboard Russian rockets has a new client, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and a new plan for the first entirely private flight to the international space station.

Watchdog Sees 'Crisis' In Elections
Reuters Illegal state interference means elections standards are in crisis in areas of Europe, the director of a European election watchdog said.

Spain Claims Russian Crime Ring Bust
MT, AP Spanish police said they had broken up the local operations of the Tambov and Malyshev organized crime groups, arresting 20 people and seizing millions of dollars in cash and assets.

Optimism for Ties With U.S.
The Associated Press President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that he was ""moderately optimistic"" about relations with the United States, saying the Kremlin was prepared to work with whoever succeeds U.S. President George W. Bush.

Medvedev Praises Freedom, Chirac
AP, Reuters President Dmitry Medvedev stressed the importance of democracy and freedom in a speech for Russia Day on Thursday.

Ivanov Warns Ukraine Over NATO
Reuters Ukraine would lose defense industry ties with Russia and suffer reduced trade cooperation if it joined NATO, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Saturday, news agencies reported.

U.S. President Makes Stumbles in Speech
The Associated Press Civil War. Cold War.

Pope Gives Bush a Rare Garden Tour
The Associated Press Pope Benedict XVI took U.S. President George W. Bush on a rare stroll through the lush grounds of the Vatican Gardens on Friday, stopping at a grotto where the pontiff prays daily.

Iran Rejects Western Aid Offer
Reuters Western powers are warning Iran of more sanctions if it rejects an incentives offer and presses on with sensitive nuclear work, but the Islamic Republic is showing no sign of backing down.

Bush to Share Iraq Ideas With Brown
By Deb Riechmann / The Associated Press The two leaders will also discuss Mideast peace, trade and Northern Ireland.

Business

Fuel Costs Threaten Smaller Airlines
By Maria Antonova, Tai Adelaja / Staff Writers The economy and state coffers may be bulging from sky-high oil prices, but the soaring cost of aviation fuel could soon drive some of the country’s smaller airlines to the wall.

MegaFon IPO Backed By Fridman
By Lyubov Pronina / Bloomberg Billionaire Mikhail Fridman said an initial public offering of MegaFon, the country's third-largest mobile phone company, would give the provider greater opportunities to expand.

OGK-1 Building New Tyumen Unit
By Nadia Popova / Staff Writer Unified Energy System has begun the construction of a new, 450-megawatt production unit at the Novy Urengoi power station to provide much needed electricity for the country’s largest oil- and gas-producing region, although financing for the project remains in doubt.

Esmark Calls Severstal Offer Inferior
The Associated Press Steel producer and distributor Esmark rejected a $670 million takeover offer from Severstal on Thursday, calling it an inadequate and inferior bid.

Gazprom Offered Role in U.S. Plant
Reuters ExxonMobil offered Gazprom a role in a liquefied natural gas re-gasification terminal on the U.S. East Coast, Gazprom deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev said Wednesday, Itar-Tass reported.

Ministers Tussle Over Russian Technologies
By Max Delany / Staff Writer A deadline to set the state corporation's startup capital is held up by a government fight over how large the company should be.

iPhones May Hit Stores In Russia By Year's End
By Tai Adelaja / Staff Writer When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced last week that the company would begin selling its high-speed iPhone 3G in 70 countries this summer, Russian fans were enraged that their country was conspicuously absent from the list.

Medvedev Calls for Cyrillic Domains
Reuters President Dmitry Medvedev called for the country to be assigned an Internet domain name in the Cyrillic script on Wednesday as part of a Kremlin drive to promote Russian as a global language.

Talk of Kerimov Interest Boosted European Banks
Reuters A report that Suleiman Kerimov is interested in buying stakes in major European banks and wants other tycoons to join him lifted shares briefly in several major European banks Wednesday.

Facing First Loss, Lehman Demotes 2
Reuters Lehman Brothers has demoted its chief financial officer and chief operating officer after announcing it expected its first-ever loss as a public company and following a 65 percent slide in its shares this year.

InBev Courts Anheuser With $43.3Bln Bid
Reuters InBev began is courting Anheuser-Busch owners and staff in a $46.3 billion bid to add Budweiser to its own Stella Artois and Beck's beers and create the world's largest brewer.

Embattled UBS Wraps Up $15Bln Bumper Rights Issue
Reuters UBS has wrapped up a 16 billion franc ($15.4 billion) rights issue, the Swiss bank's second effort to resuscitate finances ravaged by the global markets crisis.

Yahoo Rejects Microsoft's $9Bln Offer
Reuters When Yahoo turned down the latest offer from Microsoft last week, it walked away from $9 billion in cash and $1 billion a year in additional operating profit, Microsoft said.

Lamy Tells Envoys 'Go Like Hell'
Reuters Trade envoys were told Friday to ""go like hell"" to clinch a deal on industrial goods this week, and diplomats said the day of reckoning in the World Trade Organization's long-running Doha round was fast approaching.

G8 Worries About Commodity Shock
By Glenn Somerville, Eric Burroughs / Reuters The world's richest nations warned on Saturday that soaring commodity prices might slice into economic growth, but shrank from offering any plan to calm markets or quell protests over the cost of fuel and food.

Opinion

Lots of Bark but Little Bite
Since Vladimir Putin came to power and steadily increased the country's defense budget, there has been a lot of talk about Russia's resurgent military power and its threat to the United States and Europe.

Business in Brief

Business in Brief
New Inflation Target in JulyTatneft Taps Korean BuilderDeripaska's Udokan BidCameco's Uranium CostsGas Prices Seen Rising MoreFor the Record

From the Ground Up
By John Wendle / Staff Writer Trained in finance, Dmitry Lutsenko found his calling in real estate development after building his own home.

A Democratic Debut
By Nathan Toohey / Staff Writer According to the staff of the recently opened Dem restaurant, ""Dem"" is short for ""democratic,"" which seems fairly appropriate. The cafe, as it calls itself, is indeed democratic in the egalitarian sense of the word, or at least the atmosphere is.

Restaurant News
By Nathan Toohey / Special to The Moscow Times

Competing With a Bare Behind
Marxism-Leninism, the official Soviet ideology, was based on strict scientific principles -- or so its founders claimed. They believed that they discovered the universal laws of human history, much like physicists or chemists identified the laws that define the material world.

News in Brief
60 Injured as Train Derails49 Uzbek Laborers FreedCanadian Diplomat InjuredJudo Girl Beats Traffic CopAngry Driver Kills StudentCity Duma Passes Taxi BillSuspicious Embassy PackageFor the Record

Kremlin Dream Team Needs More Direction
The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the government are in a shouting match over whether the economy -- growing at roughly 8 percent a year -- is overheating, as the IMF believes, or underinvested, as the government thinks it is. This debate is a good sign of the heightened expectations for Russia's future.

Russia Eliminates Defending Champs
By Mitch Phillips / Reuters Greece's Euro 2008 title defense petered out tamely Saturday when it lost 1-0 to Russia, while Spain became the fourth team to advance with a last-gasp 2-1 victory over Sweden.

Market Matters

Markets Lose Steam After St. Pete Bump
By Catrina Stewart / Staff Writer As Russia's business and political elite wound up their weekend gathering in St. Petersburg, the local markets received a short-term lift, but wider concerns over global inflation lingered through the week.

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