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NEW YORK (Reuter) - Soviet emigre Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel Prize-winning poet once sentenced to hard labor in the frozen tundra, died of a heart ailment Sunday in the United States, where he had lived in exile for over 20 years.
Brodsky, the 1987 Nobel laureate in literature, died at his New York home with his wife and child by his side, said Roger Straus, his publisher at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He was 55. Brodsky's mother was flying to New York from Russia, Straus added.
Brodsky shot to prominence at the age of 23 when he received a five-year sentence for hard labor in the frozen Archangelsk region of the Soviet Union for writing poetry without academic qualifications.
International pressure helped get him home to Leningrad in November 1965 after serving 18 months -- and also helped widen his fame.
``He is a mass cult figure. For many of his generation he is a god,'' said Duffield White, professor of Russian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. White once recalled being mobbed at a Moscow concert when word got out he knew Brodsky.
British poet Anthony Hecht, who worked on Brodsky's translations, told Reuters the Nobel Prize-winner's work is ``at once personal and social, reflecting his detestation of tyranny.''
Radicalized in part by his government's armed suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution and determined to go his own way, Brodsky, who left school at 15 to work as a laborer, rejected a state that claimed to have all the answers:
``Isn't that a sign/ of our arrival in a wholly new/ but doleful world? In fact, a proven truth,/ to be precise, is not a truth at all -- it's just a sum of proofs. But now/ what's said is 'I agree,' not 'I believe,''' he wrote.
Brodsky's works challenged the bleakness of Soviet life with linguistic brilliance and were circulated widely underground, finally prompting Soviet authorities to expel him in 1972.
Fifteen years later, and by then a U.S. citizen, Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In the former Soviet Union, Brodsky ``was on a par with a pop star,'' said White. ``He has certainly endured as the most important contemporary poet. In Moscow he already had certainly displaced the authority of Yevgeny (Yevtushenko) and had become the most important living poet.''
His editor at the The New Yorker magazine, Alice Quinn, said Brodsky was ``a majestic writer, with an absolutely fantastic reputation...He was a very compelling and warm person, complex and extremely endearing.''
Largely self-taught in English and Polish, Brodsky's first volume of poetry in English translation was published in 1973. In 1981 he won a MacArthur Foundation ``genius'' grant -- and in 1986 he won a National Book Critics Award for criticism. His readings of his poems and essays drew standing-room-only crowds across the United States.
Unlike fellow dissident exile Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky did not return to live in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
In 1975, he compared the lot of an exiled writer to a creature who ``survives like a fish in the sand: crawls off into the bush, and getting up on crooked legs,/walks away (his tracks like a line of writing)/ into the heart of the continent.''
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WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin arrived here Sunday for economic and technical cooperation talks with U.S. leaders against a backdrop of Western fears that Moscow may be veering away from market reform.
Chernomyrdin was met at Andrews Air Force Base by Vice President Al Gore, his opposite number as head of the U.S. side of a joint commission on technological and economic cooperation. He is to meet President Clinton Tuesday.
Before leaving Moscow Chernomyrdin acknowledged that problems had arisen in Russia's negotiations with the IMF for a $9 billion credit line, but voiced confidence they could be overcome, Interfax news agency said.
Chernomyrdin was due to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Michel Camdessus during his visit, which is mainly dedicated to a two-day meeting of the commission he heads with Gore.
Interfax quoted the prime minister as saying the sticking point with the IMF concerned conditions for the new credit line.
``That is our Russian problem,'' it quoted Chernomyrdin as saying. ``We must solve it and I don't see any particular problems here.''
Friday a top adviser to the Russian Finance Ministry dismissed reports that the IMF had threatened to withhold a new three-year loan of about $9 billion due to doubts over Russia's reformist intentions.
Jochen Wermuth, head of the ministry's economic expert group, said things were going well in the talks, which had been scheduled to end next week.
Western financiers are upset by President Boris Yeltsin's decision to remove Russia's top economic reformers from his Cabinet and his handouts to hard-hit sections of Russian society he is courting ahead of the presidential election in June.
Chernomyrdin said Sunday that Russia was sticking strictly to a reform plan agreed with the fund, which lent Russia $6.4 billion last year.
But Western economists close to the negotiations said that the credit line would be approved during the current round of negotiations.
The U.S.-Russian commission is due to discuss large-scale social and economic projects in science, nuclear and conventional energy and agriculture.
A senior U.S. official said Friday that political changes in Moscow since the commission last met would not affect U.S.-Russian economic and technological cooperation.
Beside Clinton, the Russian premier is due to meet House Speaker Newt Gingrich Tuesday.
In a 40-minute phone call Friday, Yeltsin assured Clinton that he was firmly committed to economic reform and a strong U.S.-Russian partnership, White House spokesman Michael McCurry said.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuter) - U.S. and French firms top a United Arab Emirates list to supply a crucial $6 billion warplane order, but Russia is still in the running with competitive pricing, UAE military sources said Sunday.
``The U.S. and France are at the top of the list, Russia has a little chance and Britain is out'' of the race to supply 80 long-range strike aircraft, one source said.
Warplane makers and governments alike are eager to secure the deal to save jobs at home and give their strapped aerospace industries a much-needed boost in a shrinking market.
The sources told Reuters the UAE was dropping a British offer to lease it Tornado planes to meet immediate needs while the Gulf state waits for the development of the troubled next-generation Eurofighter 2000.
British Defense Secretary Michael Portillo offered during a recent UAE visit to send two Tornados for trials soon.
The leaders of several world powers, including President Clinton, have recently contacted Abu Dhabi to rally support for their companies in the fierce competition.
``The U.S. has a good chance of getting the deal,'' said one source, who added that Washington was only ``offering 80 percent of our needs.''
The UAE has made firm demands for a U.S. export licence for High-Speed Anti-Radar Missiles and Standoff Land Attack Missiles, never before sold to a Middle Eastern state.
Western industry sources say Washington had urged Abu Dhabi to accept its offer, with possible upgrades in the near future.
``If they put that in writing and make a firm pledge that all needs would be met, I don't think the UAE will have a problem with that,'' a senior military source said.
U.S. officials say the Gulf Arab states live in a dangerous area, with Iraq to the northwest of the UAE, which is locked in a territorial dispute over three islands with its stronger neighbor to the north, Iran.
Lockheed Martin Corp. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. are in the running for the UAE order with their F-16 and F-15 aircraft, respectively.
They face tough competition from France's latest sea- and land-based Rafale, which conducted trials in the UAE late last year. Paris is ready to fit the aircraft with its most advanced avionics and weapons systems.
One option under consideration is the UAE mixing the order.
``Sharing and mixing is still a possibility. It would not be down the middle but say 60 aircraft from one company and 20 from another,'' an official source close to the deal said.
Moscow, unlike Washington, is ready to export top-of-the-line weapons and other systems along with the airframes. Its offer, the least expensive, is backed by some French firms to ease fears of lack of upgrades and service in the future.
The UAE is seeking long-range strike aircraft ``able to survive in a combat scenario'' and not downgraded models of sophisticated warplanes.
``They must have an air defense role, interdiction, precision strike weapons and advanced electronic warfare capability,'' said one source, in reference to U.S. resistance to release some systems for export.
There were indications the deal could be concluded in late 1995 or early this year, but well-placed sources told Reuters oil-producing Abu Dhabi could announce its choice in the next five months, possibly in May.
Financing for the deal and the UAE's intention to purchase the aircraft from a world power committed to its security and stability by a joint defense pact also play a major role in the final decision.
France has made the firmist commitment to rush to the UAE's aid if threatened, details of a joint U.S.-UAE defense pact are still to be worked out, and London and Abu Dhabi have been discussing a military accord for more than two years.
The military sources told Reuters the proposed UAE-British pact still faced differences, while Abu Dhabi and Moscow could announce joint defense plans soon.
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LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuter) - British companies will be a popular target for overseas buyers in 1996, following a bumper year of buying in 1995, KPMG Corporate Finance said on Monday.
For the first time since 1992, the value of British businesses bought by overseas firms last year exceeded the level of mergers and acquisitions by British companies abroad, making it second only to the United States as a target, KPMG said in a report.
``The value of British businesses and equity stakes acquired by overseas companies rose... to a record $35 billion, compared with $14.5 billion in 1994,'' the report added.
Banks and utilities provided much of the action.
``1995 was a bonanza year for foreign buyers of British companies. Much of the activity focused on investment banks and utilities, with names such as SG Warburg, Kleinwort Benson, South Western Electricity and Northumbrian Water disappearing into overseas hands,'' said Richard Agutter, partner at KPMG.
Agutter said he expected the trend to continue in 1996, with a further increase in the number of cross-border deals involving British companies.
But there would not necessarily be a repeat of the billion pound-plus ``mega-deals'' of 1995, he added.
One factor which could stem the flow of deals, particularly among U.S. buyers of British business, is the prospect of a general election.
``But the conditions for more corporate activity remain in place, with shareholders exerting growing pressure on companies to perform and a number of sectors... poised to undergo further rationalisation and consolidation,'' Agutter added.
Retail banking and insurance were two areas where such changes were most likely to occur, he said.
The survey suggests the underlying trend towards buying British businesses continues, with the number of deals struck by overseas companies rising to 468 in 1995 from 449 in 1994.
In 1995 the biggest acquirers of British companies were from the United States with $12.7 billion, followed by Germany with $5.8 billion and France with $4.3 billion.
The United States attracted $60 billion in full and partial acquisitions in 1995, China $13 billion and France $12.8 billion. The total worldwide value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions rose 17 percent to $229.4 billion in 1995.
KPMG Corporate Finance said the flow of investment in China slowed in 1995, although investments completed by British companies more than doubled.
``The rush of overseas investors into China subsided in 1995, with a decline in acquisitions and joint ventures involving foreign companies from a record $20.1 billion in 1994,'' it said.
Despite political uncertainties Russia saw an increase in the level of full or partial acquisitions by foreign investors to $9.7 billion from $1.7 billion in 1994.
The Czech Republic, Poland and other East European states also saw significant increases.
In Latin America, Brazil and Chile both recorded substantial rises, while Mexico saw a significant fall in the volume of investment, from $2.7 billion in 1994 to $1.0 billion in 1995.
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MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuter) - The official word on the Russian economy is crystal clear -- reforms are essential and they will continue apace.
But expensive presidential decrees on wages, pensions and funding for war-shattered Chechnya tell a different story.
Russia needs money to fund the plans, which include a huge $4.4 billion to rebuild Chechnya, but has not made clear where it will come from. Economists said spending on this scale would drive a tight 1996 budget off the rails.
``It is not possible to execute these decrees because of the budget,'' said one Western economist. ``The Chechnya funding alone amounts to one twelfth of government spending for the whole year.''
President Boris Yeltsin's orders to the government also include costly promises to raise pensions and student grants, pay overdue wages to miners and give an extra 10.4 trillion roubles ($2.2 billion) to finance the mining industry in 1996.
But at the same time Yeltsin, under pressure at home after a strong communist showing in December's parliamentary election, has promised reforms will stay on track.
``There will be no backtrack on reforms,'' he said on Saturday, echoing comments of previous days. ``Reform, democracy, human rights, social guarantees -- this is the course which will be pursued firmly and consistently.''
The president, long seen in the West as the guarantor of reforms, will say next month whether he will seek a second term in office. But opinion polls put him well behind communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov for the June presidential election.
Reforms have already transformed the Russian economy, replacing the rigid centrally planned system of Soviet days with a freer mixed economy of state and private ownership.
A long freefall in industrial output has almost come to an end and inflation -- a monthly 3.2 percent in December -- is at its lowest level since reforms began.
The government has promised to keep the 1996 budget deficit to 3.85 percent of gross domestic product.
But living standards have fallen sharply, prompting discontent with Yeltsin and his government and helping the communists to their big electoral success.
Economists say Yeltsin's decrees are reacting to that vote.
``What Yeltsin is doing is understandable from the political point of view, but these spending commitments look worrying,'' a second economist said. ``If they create financing problems, the IMF talks will run into serious difficulties.''
Russian officials have been talking to the International Monetary Fund for almost two weeks on terms for a three-year loan, expected to be for around $9 billion.
Premier Viktor Chernomrydin is due to meet IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus in the United States this week.
Interfax news agency said Chernomyrdin acknowledged problems had arisen in the IMF talks, but said they were not with the credit but with the conditions under which it is to be given.
Doubts about Russia's reform credentials stem both from Yeltsin's promised handouts and a cabinet reshuffle which dumped leading reformers and replaced them with conservative figures.
Those ousted included Anatoly Chubais, who masterminded Russia's privatisation drive and set great store on bringing inflation down. He was replaced by industrialist Vladimir Kadannikov, head of ailing auto maker AvtoVAZ.
``The signals from Russia are at best hard to read and at worst unambiguously negative,'' said a New York trader of Russian debt. ``If there is no IMF deal, people will begin to wonder what happens next, whether restructuring will be pushed back.''
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MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuter) - The leaders of the seven major industrialised nations and Russia are to hold a two-day summit on nuclear security in Moscow from April 19, Interfax news agency said on Monday.
Quoting the presidential press secretary, Interfax said the summit would be held under the joint chairmanship of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and France's Jacques Chirac.
Yeltsin had earlier announced there would be such a summit in April, though no firm dates had been set.
The meeting will bring together the leaders of the so-called G-7 group of leaders from the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Japan, plus Russia.
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MOSCOW, Jan 29 (Reuter) - Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov said on returning from Tajikistan on Monday that Russian peacekeeping troops had to stay there for the sake of stability in Central Asia, Interfax news agency said.
``If we withdraw from Tajikistan a wave of destabilisation could grip the whole of Central Asia and that is the underbelly of Russia,'' Interfax quoted him as saying.
Primakov was referring to thousands of troops Moscow sent there under an inter-governmental deal after a civil war in 1992. They underpin the leadership of Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov.
Primakov spoke as government and delegates from the exiled opposition met in the Turkmen capital Ashgabad for peace talks to end three years of civil strife in Tajikistan.
The fifth round of the U.N.-sponsored peace process aims to find ways to reconcile Dushanbe with an alliance of Islamists and democrats driven out after heavy fighting in late 1992.
The Russian troops are stationed mostly along Tajikistan's Afghan border and come under sporadic cross-border attack from rebels.
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ASHGABAT, Jan 29 (Reuter) - Peace talks to end a three-year civil war between Tajikistan's Moscow-backed government and the exiled opposition were due to resume in the Turkmen capital on Monday amid growing tension in the Central Asian state.
After a New Year break, the fifth round of a U.N. peace process was aiming to find ways to reconcile the Dushanbe government with an alliance of Islamists and democrats driven out after heavy fighting in late 1992.
``We hope to have a more flexible attitude from both sides,'' U.N. mediator Ramiro Piriz Ballon told Reuters before the fresh round of talks scheduled for later in the day.
The two sides are struggling to end the bitterness caused by a war which the government says killed 50,000 and which could easily spill across borders and destabilise the region. The opposition puts the death toll in the war at twice that number.
Just a week before the talks were due to begin, Tajikistan was thrown into turmoil by the murder of its highest Moslem cleric. No one has claimed responsibility.
As delegates gathered for the new talks, new Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov ruled out any withdrawal of the thousands of Russian peacekeepers stationed in Tajikistan under a Kremlin agreement with the Tajik leadership.
``If we withdraw from Tajikistan a wave of destabilisation could grip the whole of Central Asia and that is the underbelly of Russia,'' Interfax news agency quoted him as saying on his return to Moscow from a trip to Tajikistan.
Tension in Tajikistan rose again after two pro-government warlords took up arms demanding government changes, which they appeared to have won with a late personnel switch at the head of the government delegation at the talks.
Hardline Deputy Prime Minister Makhmadsaid Ubaidullayev, who had refused to compromise on power-sharing, is replaced as chief negotiator by dovish Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov.
Diplomats said the change in the government team could open the way for compromise on reintegrating the opposition into political life in the ex-Soviet state of 5.7 million.
``We will have to see to what extent it will influence the negotiations -- but it might mean some change,'' one diplomat in the Tajik capital Dushanbe told Reuters.
Akbar Torajonzoda, leader of the joint opposition team, said the latest tensions could send Tajikistan down the same road as neighbouring war-torn Afghanistan.
``The latest events in Tajikistan show a trend towards the ``Afghanisation' of the situation,'' the former Tajik Mufti told Reuters. ``Only radical changes can solve the Tajik problem.''
Prospects for the talks appear to have improved after Tajik President Imomali Rakhmonov pledged at a recent Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Moscow to seek peace.
Russia, whose 201st division forms the core of peacekeeping forces, has sent out mixed policy signals in the past.
But new Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, at talks with Rakhmonov in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Sunday, backed the peace process and called for ``intensive dialogue.''
Despite Russia's military support, Rakhmonov has been unable to bring under control the irregular field commanders of the Popular Front who backed the government side in the war.
One former Popular Front commander crossed the Uzbek border on Friday into the town of Tursunzade, while another surrounded police headquarters in Kurgan-Tyube on Saturday. Both demanded Ubaidullayev's sacking and the pullout of peacekeeping troops.
Neither had given up their arms by Monday, officials said.
``It's tense and its not clear how it will continue,'' the diplomat said. ``The situation could change at any time.''
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MOSCOW (Reuter) - Russia plans to sober up its chaotic vodka industry, potentially one of the state's biggest sources of revenue, by curbing a flood of cheap imports and fake brands, a top industry official said Monday..
Since the Soviet Union fell apart, the vodka market has been in disarray, with production, sales and imports in disorder.
``Vodka is a matter of great profits. It is not even a matter of cost. You just make a profit,'' said Vladimir Yarmosh, head of the Rosalko vodka and alcohol producers' association.
``The state, both pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union, used to receive up to one-third of its overall profits from vodka sales,'' he told Reuters. ``But this share has fallen to only 2 percent over the past few years.''
The Russian Cabinet Friday discussed how to implement a new law on regulation of vodka production and sales. The law was approved in November but requires a number of additional resolutions to come into effect.
``The state is helping producers but, in the first place, the state is helping itself to re-establish its monopoly on the market,'' Yarmosh said, adding that Russia's share of the domestic vodka market was currently less than 50 percent.
Russia can produce up to 600 million gallons of vodka a year but the industry is working at about 30 percent of capacity, Yarmosh said.
By some estimates the average Russian drinks half a bottle -- nearly half a pint -- of vodka a day.
From every bottle the state gets an 85 percent excise tax, a 20 percent value added tax and several special taxes, which push the price up six- or seven-fold from its production cost.
Under the new law, which Yarmosh expected to come into force by the year-end, imports can provide at most 20 percent of alcoholic drink consumption. Eighty percent of imports will be wine, with the nrest going on spirits, including vodka.
Yarmosh said there would be no problems with high-quality foreign brands, which account for 2 or 3 percent of total consumption and are being imported lawfully.
``There is no big competition between us and them (world-known brands). ``There will be enough room for everyone here,'' Yarmosh said.
But Ukraine and Belarus, which so far have enjoyed tax-free exports to Russia, now face excise and import duties.
Yarmosh said the law also called for police and customs to clamp down on vodka counterfeiting and smuggling. Licenses for alcohol trading would be re-registered, he said.
He expected prices to rise to 15,000 to 20,000 rubles ($3.20 to $4.20) per half-liter (0.52 gallon) bottle from the current 8,000 to 10,000 rubles. Imported Ukrainian vodka costs about 6,000 to 7,000 rubles.
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PARIS (Reuter) - French President Jacques Chirac and Russian President Boris Yeltsin will co-chair an international conference on nuclear security in Moscow on April 19-20, Chirac's office said Monday.
The conference, which will study such topics as safety in civilian nuclear power stations, was decided by the world's seven leading industrialized countries, together with Russia, at a summit meeting last June in Halifax, Canada.
Chirac is to co-chair the meeting since France at present holds the G-7's rotating chairmanship.
His decision last summer to resume French nuclear tests created a storm of international outrage.
A sixth test that occurred Saturday may be the final one of the current series, which France has pledged will be its last.
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MOSCOW (Reuter) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin has stepped up his still undeclared campaign for re-election with a blitz of public appearances in the last few days, but the odds against him winning appear to be widening.
Yeltsin, who is 65 Thursday, has been shown on television buying candy at a Moscow shop, sipping a drink at a fast food restaurant, chatting to soldiers' mothers outside parliament and inspecting a building site in a white hardhat.
The well-publicized and populist appearances -- more than in any week since he sent troops to breakaway Chechnya almost 14 months ago -- are the latest sign that Yeltsin will seek a second term in Russia's presidential election June 16.
But an opinion poll released Sunday suggested he faces an uphill struggle. Yeltsin won only 5.4 percent support, less than half the backing for Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov.
``The epoch of Boris Yeltsin is over. All the signs of a rapid weakening and collapse of his power are evident,'' said economist Grigory Yavlinsky, confirmed Saturday as presidential candidate for the liberal Yabloko movement.
Yegor Gaidar, a former acting prime minister who last week became the latest reformist to abandon Yeltsin, said, ``I think nominating him (as president) today would be the best gift you could make the communists.''
Yeltsin, who was elected president in June 1991, plans to say whether he will stand by Feb. 15.
Some analysts say he has one other trick up his sleeve. They say he could decide to postpone the election if he believes he cannot win.
The Kremlin has denied that this is an option.
Most politicians and commentators believe the only factor which could stop him running now would be a deterioration of the heart problems which struck him twice last year.
Few write Yeltsin off completely and Western governments appear still to back him. He is a wily and tough politician, has all the powers of office at his disposal to try to win support and the list of rivals will not scare him.
``I look around at the other candidates and am sure no one is better than he,'' a Kremlin source said.
Yeltsin's problems are evident in widespread discontent with the hardships suffered under Western-style reforms, a communist revival in last month's parliamentary election, the relentless conflict in Chechnya and his low popularity.
A survey of 1,600 people carried out by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VTsIOM), issued by NTV television on Sunday, ranked Yeltsin fifth among presidential hopefuls.
The poll was conducted just after a hostage crisis in the southern village of Pervomaiskoye.
Zyuganov came first, with 11.3 percent support. Yavlinksy had 7.7 percent, ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky had 7.1 percent and retired Gen. Alexander Lebed had 5.5 percent.
Many commentators say the latest blow was this month's siege of Pervomaiskoye, in which Russia's military used ferocious force to crush Chechen hostage-takers but showed little concern for the captives' lives and let some of the rebels escape.
``In January all analysts agreed that despite all the losses and costs, Yeltsin would reach a second round run-off in the election and probably beat Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov and Lebed,'' political analyst Lilia Shevtsova wrote in the weekly magazine Vek.
``That option no longer seems obvious. After Pervomaiskoye, everything could turn out absolutely differently and nobody would stake their life on Yeltsin winning the second round.''
Yeltsin has adopted what appears a campaign policy. His words speak of guarantees that reforms will continue, but his actions distance him from the changes he has presided over.
He offered cash handouts to pensioners and students last week to try to catch the mood of a people fed up with reforms. He has fired several liberals in the government and his Kremlin team and replaced them with conservatives.
If he chose to scrap the poll, he could cite the need for a state of emergency because of events in Chechnya or the threat of guerrilla attacks in the rest of Russia, the analysts say.
``If in the next few months Yeltsin does not manage to find some trump cards to strengthen his position, and if he fails to distance himself from his old course, he may propose postponing the election,'' Shevtsova wrote.
But she suggested Yeltsin would not win support at home or abroad for this. ``The impression is growing that the West would rather put up with Zyuganov in the Kremlin than the postponement of the election,'' she said.
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MOSCOW (Reuter) - Foreign investors will have a new chance to play the high-risk Russian market this year as more of Russia's biggest firms plan to issue American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) -- the closest they can get to a New York listing.
The line for a listing includes metals group Norilsk Nickel, which will present its plans in New York Feb. 29.
The first to issue the securities was oil firm LUKoil, whose ADRs started trading last year.
``I would be fairly confident that by the end of this year, there will be about 10 Russian companies with ADR programs and that is probably being conservative,'' said Chris Sturdy, vice- president for depositary receipts programs at The Bank of New York in London.
``We believe it will become a more and more common feature in Russia, just as in every other emerging market.''
The Bank of New York is a major depository bank working on Russian ADR issues, for which firms need approval by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Comission.
Companies likely to be among the next issuers of ADRs -- dollar-denominated securities traded in the United States -- were the Seversky Trubny Zavod pipemaker, Inkombank and the Chernogorneft oil company, Sturdy said.
Other likely issuers include Moscow's GUM department store and the Unified Energy Systems utility.
ADRs let investors buy into foreign enterprises but avoid settlement problems on domestic securities markets.
Many potential investors have been put off by infrastructure problems in Russia, in particular concern over share registers. With an ADR, the underlying shares are held on deposit and holders can receive dividends and vote.
CS First Boston quoted Lukoil ADRs, each representing four shares, at $19.37 to 19.87, compared with $4.75 to $5.10 for a share.
CS First Boston oils analyst Stuart Amor said the issue had sparked extra demand. ``When it first came out, we certainly saw some additional demand. These were fund managers who had not bought Lukoil before because of custody issues.''
Russian utility Mosenergo last year raised $22.5 million by selling 2 precent to 3 percent of its capital through a private placement in the United States but this did not need SEC approval.
For Russian firms issuing ADRs can increase liquidity and familiarize international investors with their business.
Initially, Russian companies plan ``level one'' ADRs, which allow U.S. investors to buy their existing shares.
ADRs to raise new capital carry more detailed reporting requirements and cost the firms a lot more.
However, Diana Downing of law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, which has advised several Russian companies on ADR issues, said some of her clients were interested in making so-called ``level three'' issues later this year. ``The ultimate goal for everyone is to raise some money,'' she said.
But some analysts see a danger in the growth of ADR issues.
``This is a situation where the Russian capital market could go offshore,'' Boris Jordan, president of investment house Renaissance Capital, told a conference earlier this month.
Sturdy said price differentials between ADRs and the underlying stocks could give both domestic and international investors arbitrage opportunities.
``If we wiped ADRs off the map, Russia would be sitting around waiting for foreign investment that wouldn't be coming,'' he said, adding U.S. and European funds were interested in buying ADRs.
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MOSCOW (Reuter) - Russia may ask for new U.S. government credits to buy wheat, possibly through big Russian importers Exportkhleb and Roskhleboprodukt, Moscow-based grain sources said Monday.
``I'm sure the Russians are into the idea of discussing GSM credits,'' said a Western source. ``I can't imagine it would not come up'' during Russia-U.S. meetings in Washington this week.
Russia's grain import needs have been pegged at three million to six million metric tons, with some of that to come from traditional suppliers Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Russia's 1995 harvest, at 63.5 million tons, was the worst in three decades.
Officials from the two import companies accompanied Acting Agriculture Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zaveryukha to Washington this week for a meeting of the U.S.- Russian Commission on Economic and Technical Cooperation.
Roskhleboprodukt director Leonid Cheshinsky and Exportkhleb head Alexander Belik are on the trip. Roskhleboprodukt, a privatized company with close ties to the state, made million-ton U.S. wheat purchases in Soviet times.
``If there were even moderate balances of GSM credit available, you'd see Roskhleboprodukt using it. The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) is probably not going to put up for millions of tons. But it may put up $50-$100 million for 200,000-300,000 tons of grain.''
Washington's GSM, or General Sales Manager, system provides concessional credits for exports of U.S. wheat.
Zaveryukha said Friday in Washington that Russia would buy some U.S. grain on a commercial, not government to government, basis. Officials at both grain importers declined to comment.
Roskhleboprodukt has already bought 77,000 tons of U.S. wheat and 15,000 tons of U.S. flour under a $22 million GSM credit. Moscow has some $24 million of credit remaining under the U.S. Agriculture Department's GSM program, and grain sources have said Russian officials may want to increase this amount.
``The Russians will wait for the Americans to offer. The Americans will wait for the Russians to ask. It's a cat and mouse game,'' the Western source said.
He said he thought Russia could import another few hundred thousand tons from non-Commonwealth of Independent State sources before August.
Zaveryukha has said repeatedly that Russia will not use state funds for grain purchases, and that any supply gap will be made up through commercial channels or by the regions.
``Purchases with (Russian) government money are probably going to be pretty limited,'' said the Western source. ``I'd be surprised if they use their own funds for cash buys in any way. Further GSM credits will probably be used. And individual companies will make some purchases.''
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MOSCOW (Reuter) - Russia reacted with shock and sadness Monday to the death of Joseph Brodsky, hailing him as its greatest contemporary poet even though he spent half his life in exile.
``The sun of Russian poetry has set,'' wrote state news agency Itar-Tass, making no apologies for repeating the phrase hitherto reserved for 19th century poetic genius Alexander Pushkin.
The respected weekly current affairs program Itogi broke into its broadcast Sunday night to give the news that Brodsky, thrown out of the Soviet Union in 1972, had died in his sleep of a heart ailment at his home in New York.
``He was the only Russian literary figure to win the honor to be called great in his lifetime; one of only four Nobel prizewinners in the history of Russian literature,'' said Itogi presenter Yevgeni Kiselyov.
Russian writers gathered for the annual meeting of the Pen Club Monday stood in silence for one minute in honor of 55-year-old Brodsky, who left school at 15 to work as a laborer and was then persecuted for writing without qualifications.
Poet Andrei Bitov told the assembled authors Brodsky seemed thriving when they last met in December. ``His spirit was so bright and healthy that one could believe that he could overcome his physical illness. He was free in every sense of the word.''
Soviet-era protest poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said Brodsky's death had left a tragic gap in Russian poetry, which still enjoys a special place in society although it has lost some of its resonance since the end of totalitarian rule.
``We need poets to continue the Russian tradition of civic poetry, of criticism of the authorities, especially now when the Russian spirit is being overwhelmed by American trash,'' he said.
Four volumes of Brodsky have been printed here since political censorship was eased in the late 1980's. But it was hard to find them among the translations of western blockbusters on sale on snow-swept street bookstalls Monday.
One bookseller who had a two-volume set of Brodsky's verse on sale for 40,000 roubles ($9) said the years of persecution had taken their toll, making him little known outside intellectual circles.
``People fall on romances like flies but if you want a quick turnover you don't stock Brodsky,'' he said.
Brodsky felt far from free in the Soviet Union of the 1950s and 1960s, where the authorities were only too aware of the power of literature and sought to keep it under strict control.
``As a citizen of a second-rate age, I take pride in recognizing that my best thoughts are second-rate wares. I offer them to those who live in the days to come as an example of a fight against suffocation,'' he wrote.
In 1963, Brodsky, then aged 23 and a little known poet, was sentenced as a ``social parasite'' to five years' labor collecting dung on a farm in the Soviet Union's frozen Archangelsk region.
A mass of protests by prominent cultural figures in Russia and abroad won him fame and freedom two years later but in 1972, angered by the widespread underground circulation of Brodsky's works, the Soviet authorities expelled him.
Poet Yevgeny Rein said Brodsky was the last great poet of Russian classic literature in a line stretching back to Pushkin through Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Blok and Mikhail Lermontov.
``Today there is no more significant name for the Russian language. As a poet he rejuvenated Russian verse,'' said Rein.
Michel Aucouturier, Professor of Russian at the Sorbonne who has translated Brodsky's works, gave his work a wider significance. ``His poetry has a philosophical, metaphysical base which makes it universal,'' he said by telephone from Paris.
Kiselyov expressed the frustration of many in Russia that Brodsky, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, did not come back to live here after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Parliamentary deputy Galina Starovoitova, a long-time friend of Brodsky's, launched a campaign Monday for the poet's ashes to be brought back to his native St. Petersburg for burial.
But Aucouturier said that while Brodsky remained close to Russian culture through relatives and friends in St . Petersburg, going back to Russia would have been like a return to the past.
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DAMASCUS, Syria (Reuter) - A Russian flotilla of 10 warships, commanded by a senior Russian naval officer, have docked at two Syrian ports on a goodwill visit to Moscow's former close ally.
Adm. Igor Kasatonov, first deputy commander-in-chief of the Russian navy, told a news conference in Damascus Monday the vessels carrying 3,500 sailors, docked Sunday at the Mediterranean ports of Latakia and Tartus.
The group, from Russia's northern fleet's base of Severomorsk, include the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, the destroyer Bezstrashny and the frigate Pylky, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said.
``We want to confirm our presence in the Mediterranean which dates back to tens of years ... '' Kasatonov said.
``We want also to express our desire to promote cooperation with countries which existed a long time ago and with those who made new offers to develop cooperation.''
The admiral said the visit was a goodwill mission ``which is not aimed at showing muscles.''
The Soviet Union was Syria's main arms supplier before it broke off into several states led by Russia in 1990.
Ties with socialist Syria which became cool as a result of the collapse of Communism began to warm up again after Russia joined the United States in sponsoring Arab-Israeli peace negotiations which opened in Madrid in late 1991.
Kasatonov said no joint military exercises were planned with the Syrians but added that the current visit had ``required big coordination and cooperation on some military combat missions.''
``We need for example to coordinate on how to protect the visiting vessels off the syrian ports and this requires full coordination with the Syrian marine forces,'' he said.
Kasatonov said that Syria had welcomed requests to allow any Russian jet fighters to land at its airports in case of emergency.
``We made agreements with some friendly states to facilitate the landing of our jet fighters in an emregency. the Syrian leadership in particular was one of the first which offered the use of any of its airports for such a purpose,'' he said.
Kasatonov said he used to come to Syria since 1969 ``when conditions were completely different and more difficult.''
``I was a commander of a russian vessel which was assigned to provide protection to the Russian ships which carried military equipment to syria,'' he said.
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