The Moscow Times

Market Matters: Struggling Stocks Spur New Record Oil Prices
Oil hit another record of just under $143 as global stocks tumbled last week, with the Dow briefly dipping into bear market territory as investors sought safety in gold, government debt and the Swiss franc.

News

U.S. Spurs Hopes of An End to HIV Tests
By Svetlana Osadchuk / Staff Writer In an indication that Russia may end mandatory HIV tests for foreign residents, government officials said Thursday that they were considering replicating pending U.S. legislation that would lift a ban on HIV-positive visitors to that country.

Dudley Warns Fight Tearing TNK-BP Apart
By Anatoly Medetsky, Miriam Elder and Anna Yukhananov / Special to The Moscow Times The company’s chief executive rejects a lawsuit against him from a group of Russians and vows to continue working.

About 50,000 Museum Pieces Lost
The Associated Press A sweeping government audit has revealed that up to 50,000 pieces are missing from Russia’s museums — everything from pre-Revolutionary medals and weapons to precious works of art, a member of the survey team said Thursday.

Germany Presents Abkhazia Proposal
Reuters Germany on Thursday presented a three-stage plan aimed at ending the deadlock in Georgia’s conflict with its breakaway province of Abkhazia.

News in Brief
Dutch Architect RobbedKhodorkovsky Free in Fall?Decapitated Head Found

Parrots Killed for Beer
Combined Reports Police in Nizhny Novgorod have arrested a man who shot dead two pet parrots after his wife refused to buy him beer, news agencies reported.

Tens of Thousands March 90 Years After Tsar's Death
By Steve Gutterman / The Associated Press Tens of thousands of Russians commemorated the 90th anniversary of the slaying of the country's royal family with a religious procession Thursday, starting out before dawn from the site where the last tsar and his wife and children were gunned down in a basement room.

Ex-Senator Convicted of Fraud
By Yelena Shuster / Special to The Moscow Times The Moscow City Court on Thursday convicted former Kalmykia Senator Levon Chakhmakhchyan of fraud and sentenced him to nine years in prison, concluding a case that saw his lawyer flee the country and receive political asylum in the United States.

Business

Rosneft Set to Clear $22Bln Yukos Loan
By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Christopher Mangham / Reuters The firm will soon pay off a huge bridging loan taken to buy Yukos assets. It still has net debt of over $20 billion.

Eurochem in $630M Deal to Develop Potassium Deposit
Combined Reports Fertilizer maker Eurochem signed a $634 million deal with an international group of contractors on Thursday to help it develop a potassium deposit near the Volga River.

Business Group Urges Action on Graft
By Marianna Tishchenko / Special to The Moscow Times Delovaya Rossia says it will coordinate lobbying on the issue of corruption.

Bill to Let Ferry Tourists Spend 3 Days in St. Pete
By Anna Yukhananov / Special to The Moscow Times Businesses and officials in St. Petersburg, Russia's most popular tourist destination, are lining up behind a proposed law that would allow ferry passengers to spend up to three days in the city without a visa.

Defense Contracts In Doubt
Combined Reports The country's defense industry lacks the resources to meet all its arms export contracts, Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov said Thursday.

Evraz Buys Stake in Australian Miner
Bloomberg Evraz Group, a steelmaker partly owned by billionaire Roman Abramovich, bought a 16 percent stake in Australian firm Cape Lambert Iron Ore, potentially derailing a bid to sell the company's mine to China.

E.On Starts Building Mega Plant
Reuters Germany’s E.On began building two 400-megawatt turbines at a power station in the country’s oil heartland, which when completed would make it the largest station in the world, the utility said Thursday.

President Plugs IT, Democracy
Reuters Modern communications technology should become a gateway to democracy in Russia, President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday, ordering his ministers to improve online public access to the government.

Business in Brief
Inter RAO Favors EdFAlcoa Antitrust Investigation$2.5Bln Radio Investment?Customs Planning Overhaul78% of SDM-Bank BoughtFederal Grid Undervalued?For the Record

Opinion

Michele A. Berdy: A Duck by Any Other Name
English-speaking readers of Kommersant might have been disconcerted to learn that the new U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation is a bird. In fact, he's two birds.

Linking Communism With Nazism
By Maxim Shevchenko Lithuania is the latest country to conduct a hysterical campaign that equates Soviet symbols with Nazism.

Comment

The Last Tsar Was Michael, Not Nicholas
By W. George Krasnow The 90th anniversary of the massacre of the Romanovs in Yekaterinburg has been raised to a new dimension thanks to the city of Perm. Since 1991, a growing number of Perm residents have argued that the last legitimate ruler of Russia was not Nicholas II, but his younger brother Michael. Recently, their cause got a mighty boost -- from Britain, of all places.

Armed With Nukes and a Vague Plan
By Simon Saradzhyan / Staff Writer When Vladimir Putin became acting president on New Year’s Eve in 1999, he took over a country whose armed forces were struggling to fill combat-ready units to fight guerillas in Chechnya.

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