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As he spoke in the State Duma (parliament’s lower house) on May 19 prior to its voting on his nomination as prime minister, Sergei Stepashin touched on almost every topic of interest to both the parliament’s main political parties and the country as a whole.

The would-be prime minister spoke of an urgent need to adopt laws agreed upon by acting First Deputy Prime Minister Yury Maslyukov and International Monetary Fund Director Michel Camdessus as a prerequisite to loans being issued to Russia. But Stepashin qualified his words by promising to introduce special measures aimed at cushioning the impact of the new laws on the populace.

Stepashin also promised to undertake pension and wage adjustments, bringing them in line with inflation.

He also announced a firm resolve to leisure chairs intensify the struggle against crime and promised results on specific cases, and in particular, one raised by Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko faction, that of Larisa Yudina, a journalist recently assassinated in the republic of Kalmykia.

At the same time, Stepashin said he would not permit any violation of civil rights or abuse of emergency powers in the battle against crime saying: “I am not General Pinochet. My name is Stepashin.”

Stepashin promised to maintain a degree of continuity with the policies of former Prime minister Yevgeny Primakov’s Cabinet, but also made it clear his aspirations went further than just preserving the stability achieved by the previous government. “Our mission is to create a new economic equation,” Stepashin said.

There are more examples suggesting President Boris Yeltsin’s new proetge, now confirmed prime minister, has a way with Duma deputies and is able to communicate his message without provoking conflict.

One element still lacking however, is a clear insight into what the new prime minister’s policies might look like.

Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Yakushkin told journalists Boris Yeltsin expects the new Cabinet’s priority to be smoothing the way for upcoming parliamentary elections. The president, he said, wants the country to have a parliament comprised of professionals who will occupy themselves with creative legislative work, rather than with fighting executive authorities.

But it is well understood that further market reforms will require unpopular measures, which will only bear fruit in the future, whereas a successful election campaign requires some fast-acting populist measures.

This is why the government needs as much money as possible to pearl beads pay for policies aimed at diffusing increasing social discontent. That puts the issue of IMF loans at the top of the new government’s political agenda.

Even before a vote on his nomination was taken in the Duma, Stepashin had already attempted to push along the laws the IMF says Russia must adopt before any money will be made available. However, the legislation required is still not ready.

Meanwhile, Russia has failed to service its domestic hard currency debt (OFZ) for May, most of which dates back to Soviet times. As a result, the Russian government risks a technical default on its Soviet-era debt, without reaching an agreement with its creditors for restructuring or write-off. The move is probably premised on the government betting the West would prefer not to akoya pearl jewelry declare Russia bankrupt, and most probably it is right.

The logic of events suggests the focus of the 13 months leading up to the presidential elections in 2000 will be on tactical maneuvering aimed at preventing social unrest and avoiding a formal sovereign default.

Several obstacles may confront the new cabinet, including internal rivalry between Stepashin and his current First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksyonenko. Aksyonenko has exhibited ambitions to be the focus of power in the new Cabinet.

At the same time, the new Cabinet will probably enjoy certain benefits from last year’s ruble devaluation, as the decision taken by Sergei Kirienko’s government finally takes effect. The improving state of the global oil market should also prove an advantage for Stepashin’s Cabinet.

On the eve of the Duma vote confirming Stepashin as the new prime minister, the ruble rate in the morning and the afternoon MICEX sessions drew level for the first time. Meanwhile, the dollar rate in local Moscow exchange booths also scored a first as it fell below the official rate.

It seems the pressure on the ruble has ceased, with no special effort on the part of the government. This is encouraging, even though it is impossible to predict how long the situation will last. In any case, even if the government fails to cultured pearl jewelry take any resolute measures on the economy, the market’s natural behavior might still provide a certain improvement in Russia’s economic condition in the pre-election year.

Ratifying the transformation of three former Soviet bloc nations, NATOwelcomed Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic as new members in a ceremony that recalledthe alliance’s tumultuous beginnings nearly 50 years ago.

Shortly after noon Friday, the three nations’ foreign ministers, alongwith a beaming U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, signed the instruments ofratification on a small stage at the Harry S. Truman Library.

“Hallelujah!” exclaimed Albright, a native of Czechoslovakia,who as a youngster fled Nazi and then communist rule in her native land.

Like Poland and Hungary, Czechoslovakia was a stalwart Warsaw Pactmember just a decade ago. All three have since embraced democracy – and now NATO.Czechoslovakia split into wholesale pearl jewelry the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

With foreign ministers Jan Kavan of the Czech Republic, Janos Martonyiof Hungary and Bronislaw Geremek of Poland seated behind her, Albright said, “Neveragain will your fates be tossed around like poker chips on a bargaining table.”

“You are truly allies; you are truly home.” It was a themerepeated by the three foreign ministers. “We are back in the family!” exultedMartonyi. “We are the closest of allies in our greatest endeavor – the quest forpeace and prosperity.”

Geremek said, “Today we celebrate the end of the bipolar worldsymbolized by the Iron Curtain. … Another curtain must never descend on Europe.”Winston Churchill coined the term “Iron Curtain” in a 1946 speech at WestminsterCollege in Fulton, Missouri, in which he warned of postwar Soviet expansion.

“Today is a great day for Poland,” Geremek said. “Polandis no longer alone in the defense of its freedom.”

Kovan praised the American role in helping to contain the Soviet Unionduring the Cold War. “We, the Central Europeans, will remember what the United Stateshas done for the Old Continent. … We will never again become a powerless victim of aforeign aggression.”

The table used for the signing ceremony was the same one used byPresident Truman on March 12, 1947 – 52 years ago Friday – to sign legislation thatprovided assistance to cultured pearl jewelry Greece and Turkey. Both were then facing possible communisttakeovers.

That legislation was one of many steps that led to the formation of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization two years later under Truman’s leadership. The alliancegrew from its original 12 members with the addition of Greece and Turkey in 1952, Germanyin 1955 and Spain in 1982.

After the signing, military officers from each of the three new membersplaced their respective flags on the right-hand side of the stage, joining those of the 16previous ones. The crowd of several hundred assembled in the library auditorium erupted inapplause.

President Clinton welcomed the new members, saying their presence willmake the United States safer and NATO, stronger. “For years they struggled withdignity and courage to regain their freedom,” he said from afar. “And now theywill help us defend it for many years to wholesale pearl jewelry come.”

Many Russians – and some Americans – are wary about the eastwardexpansion of NATO. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov calls it “a movement in thewrong direction.”

“All European states must cooperate in creating a joint securitysystem,” he says. “All European states must work together in the interests ofall countries rather than of separate groups.” Other critics, including MichaelMandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, contend thatNATO expansion risks alienating Russia and could preclude closer ties with Moscow.

But Albright predicted NATO enlargement will continue. “NATOenlargement is not an event; it is a process,” she said. “Steadily andsystematically, we will continue erasing without replacing the line drawn in Europe byStalin’s bloody boot.”

The Clinton administration has said that even Russian membership inNATO should not automatically be ruled out.

But the three foreign ministers, asked about that cultured pearl jewelry possibility while enroute here aboard Albright’s plane, remained silent.

After a long pause, Hungary’s Martonyi said, “Silence is youranswer.”

Other hopefuls waiting in the wings for the next round of enlargementare Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. That issue willbe discussed at a NATO summit in Washington next month.

There is always a bitter taste to words of condolence. The most heartfelt sympathy won’t return a life that has been lost, but these words are for the living, so that they might feel a little less alone in their pain and know that our thoughts are with them.

We grieve for those who lost loved ones and we feel for all those who were affected by the tragedy at “Nord-Ost”: the hostages, their friends and families.

And we are happy for those who survived the ordeal and, as one former hostage said, “were given a second life.”

It would be no exaggeration to say that the whole nation felt as if it had been freed when the news broke that the theater had been stormed.

Throughout those three days, all Russians were glued to the news, hardly noticing the time pass from one broadcast to pearl jewelry wholesale the next. We watched events with impatience and trepidation and learned to appreciate what it means when they say, “no news is good news.”

But after the initial sigh of relief that the storm had succeeded, the sorrowful tally began to climb.

First 30 estimated dead, then 67. By Saturday evening, the toll had reached 90, and on Thursday it was 119 and still climbing.

And let’s pray that it finally stops, letting us also remember the other, fortunately far more numerous tally of those who survived and are now returning to their families.

Echoes of this tragedy will haunt us for a long time to come. Several dozen people are still missing. Perhaps they are still unconscious and unidentified in hospitals. Perhaps they are being held and checked by the secret services, which did say they suspected the terrorists had assistants among the audience.

But it is also possible they can no longer speak at all and that their names will be added to those of the other victims.

Doctors warn that after stressful situations like this, the initial euphoria at being rescued often gives way to depression. This is the delayed effect. In a way, the whole nation was taken hostage, and the whole nation will feel the aftermath.

During the tragedy, the whole country, even the politicians, pulled together. But the moment it was over, quarrels and intrigues pushed their way to wholesale pearl jewelry the surface again.

Politicians first to return to normal

The hostage drama forced politicians to quell their usual squabbling natures, but the moment the storm was over, everything was back to normal. What’s more, many were tempted to use the tragedy for their own PR campaigns.

Debate immediately got under way in the Duma. SPS (Union of Right Forces) and Yabloko proposed establishing a parliamentary commission to investigate the events, especially the legality of using a sleeping gas in a situation where it endangered so many people’s lives.

The commission proposal was initially presented as a joint initiative by the right and centrist factions, but the centrists hastened to distance themselves from the idea.

The proposal first arose before the storming of the theater, in fact, but it was not very clear exactly what it should focus on.

Following the storming and initial showing of unity, the centrists hurried to resume their traditional position of loyal followers of the Kremlin, while the right resumed its usual critical stance.

Even while the drama was still going on, it turned out to be too much for some politicians to keep silent.

The shower of comments from politicians got the Kremlin so irate as to wholesale pearl jewelry demand that they refrain from making more statements.

After the Na Dubrovke was stormed, the words began to flow again. Those who took part in the events were obviously most in the limelight.

SPS leaders Boris Nemtsov and Irina Khakamada, well-known singer Iosif Kobzon and former head of the Customs Committee and leader of the Moscow Chechen diaspora Valery Draganov took part in negotiations with the terrorists and shared their impressions on television.

The Kremlin saw this as political PR. When he met with Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who also took part in the negotiations, President Vladimir Putin thanked Yavlinsky for not following their example.

Even before these events, rumors had been circulating that Yavlinsky would be invited to join the government.

One potential post – head of Gosstroi, the state construction agency – did not come through. Gosstroi head Anvar Shamuzafarov was finally dismissed, as long predicted, but button pearl was replaced by Nikolai Koshman, who, among other things, served as Russian government representative in Chechnya.

Yavlinsky rose in Putin’s esteem during the hostage crisis and it is still possible that Putin could try to bring Yavlinsky into the government.

Yavlinsky himself said that to join the government he would have to receive an offer he couldn’t refuse.

MOSCOW – Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday that some people within NATO are opposed to the alliance’s strengthening ties with Russia but said closer relations were necessary to counter current security threats.

“It is completely obvious that between NATO countries and Russia there really is a mutual understanding related to the need for some collective actions to nugget pearl counter new threats and challenges,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

“At the same time not everyone in NATO welcomes the development of relations with Russia.”

Ivanov, who spoke to reporters in the city of Samara on the Volga River, added: “Maybe not everyone in Russia welcomes the development of relations with NATO either.”

Relations between the former Cold War foes, which were strained in the 1990s by NATO’s eastward expansion and its air strikes in Yugoslavia in 1999 – have warmed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States and Russia’s support for the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan.

Last month, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson held talks with officials in Moscow on proposals to give Russia more of a voice in certain NATO affairs.

On Monday, the commander of Russia’s Baltic Fleet warned that plans to silver pearl necklace admit the former Soviet republics in the Baltics to NATO would still be perceived as a significant threat by Moscow, despite the improved relations.

The auction of a 75 percent state stake in oil company Slavneft that took place last Wednesday did not become the biggest privatization deal in Russian history. Representatives of the “Petersburgers,” the group of politicians and officials close to President Vladimir Putin, were left without a chance in the auction. As a result, they are now well behind the “Family” in terms of financial and industrial resources, and they look unlikely to catch up any time soon.

It only took the auctioneer four minutes to strike the hammer three times, marking the winning bid of $1.8 billion. The stake went to Investoil, bidding on behalf of oil companies Sibneft and Tyumen Oil Co. (TNK). The auction failed to beat the privatization record set five years ago by the sale of Svyazinvest, which brought in $175,000 more.

Through a series of complicated maneuvers, the auction’s organizers were able to wholesale pearl jewelry achieve the seemingly unachievable and hold an ostensibly transparent process of open bidding while at the same time making sure the necessary candidate won. Analysts say that, of the seven participants in the auction, at least six represented the interests of Sibneft and TNK, and the outcome was clear before the bidding even began.

The last potential obstacles were cleared just hours before the auction went ahead. Chinese oil company CNPC recalled its bid, officially after a closer examination of the assets up for sale and, unofficially, out of “Oriental tact” and an unwillingness to get mixed up in local Russian rivalries. The auction’s organizers themselves excluded several companies, including Financeprofit Expert, affiliated with Rosneft, a company that had battled genuinely hard to get its hands on Slavneft.

Rosneft, a state-owned oil company, is widely considered to be close to the “Petersburgers.” It’s no secret that, for the “Petersburgers,” the only major resource is Putin himself. Without serious financial and economic resources, the “Petersburgers” are dropping further and further behind the “Family,” the group of people who formed former President Boris Yeltsin’s close entourage.

All the “Petersburgers’” attempts to extend their influence have been blocked by the “Family’s” lobbying power. The exclusion of the Rosneft affiliate company from the Slavneft auction is a prime example. Government officials explain the exclusion, however, by saying that when one state company buys another, there is no benefit for the budget, as it amounts to just than shifting money from one pocket to multi-strands pearl necklace another.

The “Petersburgers” did try hard, nevertheless. Rosneft’s managers showed their hand, openly voicing their claims on Slavneft and making large hints that the auction’s organizers acted in the winners’ interests. Rosneft says the budget could have made a lot more money had the auction been fair, because Rosneft was willing to bid up to $2.5 billion.

But Rosneft’s complaints could be the “Petersburgers’” undoing. A high-placed government source said it has long-since been obvious that no good comes out of letting state companies take part in the privatization of other state assets and that, if the Rosneft management really does have so much spare cash at its disposal, this could become grounds for an investigation into why it isn’t investing the money in its own development instead of hiding it under the mattress.

Chubais on the offensive

Another major event that should have coincided with the Slavneft auction – the second reading in the Duma of the restructuring plan for the Unified Energy Systems (UES) electricity monopoly – has been put off until Monday. Unhappy with this postponement, Anatoly Chubais, the UES head, took the opportunity to go on the offensive at a forum on the energy sector in the 21st century at the Kremlin.

An irate Chubais confirmed the rumor that has been circulating for several weeks now that someone is buying up shares in UES and that, at this rate, they could manage to cultured pearl jewlyer concentrate 20-25 percent of the UES shares in their hands. Chubais then accused those trying to postpone the reform plan of helping these “influential businessmen.”

Chubais said the market went down 4 percent after the news that the Duma reading would be postponed, putting $30 million in net profit in the pockets of whoever was buying up the shares. Finally, Chubais called on the state to make up its mind about whether to follow reform through to the end or return to strict state regulation of the sector.

Chubais did not name the people buying up UES shares, but many think the trail leads back to Chukotka Gov. Roman Abramovich, considered one of the most influential members of the “Family.” There are also rumors that Oleg Deripaska and one of the brothers Chernoi are also involved. This would be logical given that the aluminum sector is one of the most energy-intensive and, therefore, depends a great deal on the situation on the electricity market.

There is also a political logic at work: Deripaska is known to be close to wholesale pearl jewelry Abramovich, while Abramovich and Chubais have had their differences of late over the influence of oligarchic groups in the country.

Chubais estimates the money the mysterious group is prepared to spend on consolidating a stake in UES at $600 million to $700 million, and gives this sum – equivalent to the annual budgets of several Russian regions – as evidence of how serious the oligarchs are now. The same day that Chubais said all this, the Slavneft auction took place, and, according to the Chamber of Auditors, the winners saved themselves the same sum. This makes the figures all add up, especially since, despite being a regional governor, Abramovich is still linked to Sibneft.