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MOSCOW - Palestinian President Yasser

MOSCOW - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is due to arrive overnight in time for talks on Tuesday in Moscow, where officials have signalled their support for wholesale pearl earrings new U.S. initiatives for Arab-Israeli peace.

A Russian Foreign Ministry source said Arafat, initially due on Monday evening, would arrive late at night after a meeting in Ramallah with U.S. special envoy William Burns.

Arafat will travel via Jordan, and a further delay could put off his arrival until Tuesday morning.

With the Bush administration increasing its role in Middle East peace efforts, Russian officials have been careful to freshwater pearl necklace say any mediation they offer would be part of a wider international effort.

"We always speak out for active dialogue between the participants of the conflict and offer cooperation in finding a solution to the crisis...through our bilateral ties and the multilateral efforts undertaken by the international community," Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told Reuters television on Monday.

The Foreign Ministry said Arafat would meet President Vladimir Putin as well as Ivanov on Tuesday. Burns has been shuttling back and forth between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon since Sunday, part of the Bush administration's newly increased role in the region.

Moscow has little direct clout in the Middle East, but remains a co-sponsor along with Washington of peace talks, and is used as a foil by both sides when they seek to broaden international support. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres visited last week.

Putin said last week that the international community should make sure it maintains a united front in Middle East peace efforts, a signal Moscow would not pursue a separate course apart from the latest U.S. peace initiative.

Russia has said an Egyptian-Jordanian peace plan and a report by a commission led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell should wheat pearl serve as the basis for peace talks.

Both documents call for an immediate end to violence in the region, but Israel has rejected their calls for a halt to construction at its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, saying this should be a matter for talks after violence ends.

Although the United

MOSCOW - Yasser Arafat called for an active role for Russia in the Middle East peace process during a telephone call Monday with President Vladimir Putin that freshwater pearl bracelet was initiated by the Palestinian leader.

Putin and Arafat discussed the current situation in the Middle East during the call, the president's office said in a statement. Arafat spoke of the "further active role of Russia" in international mediation efforts in the region.

Moscow, a traditional ally of the Palestinians during pearl earrings the Soviet era, is an official co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process, though its role has been much smaller than that of the United States.

Although the United States has said a new Palestinian leader is needed to help a peaceful settlement in the region, Russia has maintained its support of Arafat and demanded swift progress toward setting up a sterling silver jewelry Palestinian state.

Putilin's appointment suggests

The recent announcement that Col. Gen. Vladislav Putilin, a former deputy defense minister, was appointed deputy minister at German Gref's Economic Development and Trade Ministry gives us insight on how President Vladimir Putin understands the state of the Russian economy and who he believes is most qualified and trusted to strengthen it. With Putilin's appointment, we are being asked to determine if military science is superior to what is known as the art of economics.

Putilin's appointment suggests a number of things. Putin is said to be dissatisfied with state economic readiness in the event of war or major natural disaster. One cannot avoid the impression that the president is more worried about the slow collapse of the country's aging industrial infrastructure. His concerns are real, but placing so much trust in the military may be a mistake. Defending the country's borders and improving the efficiency of economic management is enough of a challenge for the military at this point.

Second, Putin prefers all issues related to national security to pearl jewelry be within the purview of the military security clique. Some in the media worry about the military's growing involvement in how the government runs economic policy. I am not so worried about the "militarization of the economy" as I am about importing bad military habits into the management of the economy. Putilin is not an economist; he is a military man educated and socialized by a command economy.

Third, the president's confidence in Gref continues to wane. Putin publicly demands that his minister accelerate the economy's growth. The best Gref can do in response is to ignore this demand – or simply contradict it. It is said that Gref and Putilin have been friends since Gref designed his lackluster strategic plan for the economy to 2010. Whether by design or sloppy PR, Gref appeared to be caught off-guard by his friend's appointment. It is a bit odd that the Defense Ministry, and not the Kremlin, broke the news of Putilin's appointment to Gref. Maybe some members of the military just wanted to do some showing-off by embarrassing their boss, Sergei Ivanov. During all the discussion of Putilin's appointment, not a word came from the Defense Minister.

Putilin's new job puts him in a powerful position. He is charged with, among other things, determining the parameters of the military budget. It is unclear if his appointment within Gref's ministry is to the advantage of the Defense Ministry. Putilin has an uneven track record when it comes to successful implementation of reforms. Remember when the Strategic Missile Forces took over the Space Forces and Space Defense under Putilin's stewardship? Even Ivanov has acknowledged that the merger was a mistake – both the idea and the implementation.

Some of the country's largest enterprises are accepting Putilin's appointment with hesitating relief and some trepidation. The idea of having contingency plans to nugget pearl mobilize the economy during an emergency is nothing new in Russia (or most large economies). What is new is the awareness of its necessity. Over the past decade, this concern has been treated as an unfortunate after-thought that tied up assets. Now Putin wants this trend reversed. However, there is an important difference between 10 years ago and now: Today, Russia's most important strategic assets are in private hands.

The business community's hesitating relief is due to the fact that, finally, there is a senior government official charged to interact with the business community on the issue of national economic security. The business community's trepidation is the result of not knowing how much Putilin knows about private enterprise. How much authority does the new minister expect to have over business planning in some of the country's largest enterprises? It is doubtful that Norilsk Nickel will ever accept being told to produce latrines during wartime. Krasny Oktyabr macaroni might be tasty if produced under coercion, but will shareholders agree with changes in product line? What recourse would shareholders have? Fighting bureaucratic wars is a well-tried Russian art, but dealing with wealthy individuals and shareholders will take a set of skills military personnel rarely learn.

Where do Putilin's loyalties lie? Do they lie with his life-long cadres in the military, or with his new civilian boss? Militaries around the world do their best to get as much money from the treasury as possible, and cost-effective spending is an all but alien concept. Putilin himself has waffled a great deal concerning military reform, especially his stand on conscription. Putilin's agenda – even mandate – is anyone's guess at this point. But one thing is clear: He has a tremendous task ahead of him. Balancing the needs of national security and securing stable economic growth is a difficult mission for countries like Russia that has preciously little of both.

The best of luck to Putilin, but would not it have been better to send some of Gref's people over to the Defense Ministry? In other words, would not it be better to pearl bracelet send someone from a ministry about reform to a ministry that has scant understanding of the term?

(Peter Lavelle is a Moscow-based analyst. E-mail him at plavelle@rol.ru.)

Armitage repeated Washington's

MOSCOW - The United States does not need a second U.N. resolution in order to wage war against Iraq, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said amid talks Thursday with Russian officials.

Armitage repeated Washington's position that U.S. President George W. Bush has not yet made a decision on whether to go to war but he said that it was "time for Saddam Hussein to come clean and disarm."

Later Thursday, President Vladimir Putin told Bush in a telephone conversation that "the main criterion" in assessing the situation in Iraq should be the weapons inspectors' findings, which are to pearl jewelry wholesale be presented to the United Nations Security Council on Jan. 27, the Kremlin press service said.

Armitage, who is in Moscow for talks primarily on U.S.-Russian cooperation in counterterrorism, fielded a range of questions on Iraq, North Korea and U.S.-Russian relations during an interview broadcast live on Echo Moskvy, a favorite place for visiting foreign dignitaries seeking to reach out to Russians.

Russia, along with France and China, believes U.N. approval, beyond Resolution 1441 that created a new tough inspections regime, would be necessary for the United States and its allies to use force should Iraq fail to prove that it no longer has weapons of mass destruction.

"We believe there is sufficient authority to move now without a second resolution," Armitage said.

Russia reluctantly backed Resolution 1441 during debate at the United Nations late last year, but Armitage held out the possibility of a real sweetener for Moscow that could help win Russian support for U.S. policy toward Iraq.

Armitage said the United States was working "very closely" with Russia "about the process of designating some Chechen terrorist groups as foreign terrorist organizations."

Russia claims that international terrorists are deeply involved in supporting Chechen separatists who have been at war with Russia since 1999, the second conflict in a decade. Russia in part has justified its harsh crackdown in Chechnya in the name of international terrorism and would very much like to gemstone necklace have its view vindicated by putting Chechens on the U.S. list of international terrorist organizations.

"Anyone who kills civilians for political aims is anathema to us," Armitage said. He added that the United States was counting on "the Russian Federation to respect those rights of Chechen citizens who are not involved in terrorism."

Armitage said that Russian and American cooperation in the area of counterterrorism was good and that Russia was doing a good job in guarding its own nuclear facilities in order to prevent proliferation.

With regard to North Korea, Armitage expressed thanks for Russian efforts to help resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's intention to develop nuclear weapons.

He repeated the U.S. administration's opposition to a treaty on security guarantees.

"What I said is that we weren't ready for a treaty which in our system has a necessity to be ratified by the U.S. Senate. I did say we're willing to document a no-hostile intent or so-called security guarantees for North Korea in some manner," Armitage said. He did not elaborate.

In his telephone call with Bush, Putin discussed Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov's recent three-day negotiations in Pyongyang.

"The president underlined that in the opinion of the Russian side, after the meeting in Pyongyang, a good basis can be seen for a productive dialogue with North Korea with the aim of lessening the severity of the crisis and bringing the so-called 'North Korean nuclear problem' to potato pearl a political settlement," the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

The two leaders agreed to continue diplomatic contacts on North Korea, it said.

Seven thousand rebe

The Russian army was gearing up Friday for what it said could be the final strike against Chechen rebels, defying a Chechen declaration of all-out guerrilla war.

Seven thousand rebel fighters are holding out in the south of the region, mainly in the mountain range bordering Georgia, according to Russian military estimates, and the federal forces have vowed to root them out.

But observers say the task will not be easy. The rebels were quick to akoya pearl necklace realize threats to step up fighting made early in the week by Chechen leader Aslan Maskadov when they ambushed two military trains, provoking one of the most violent clashes with Russian forces since the withdrawal from the capital, Grozny.

Russian government spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky told a news conference the rebels retreated after a fight when they mined a train track near the town of Argun, AP reported. He did not give casualty figures.

The attack came after Maskhadov said in a video-taped interview obtained by Reuters that large-scale guerrilla war would be launched "in the mountains, the lowlands, in every village, wherever we can."

"The people are rising up, the people have understood that [the Russian campaign] has nothing to do with the struggle against banditry and terrorism," he said, according to Reuters.

Russian forces have been trying to prevent the estimated 3,000 rebels who abandoned Grozny from meeting up with guerrillas already entrenched in the mountains. Interfax said Russian helicopters and planes flew about 200 sorties Thursday in a bid to end rebel resistance.

Alexander Pikayev, a military analyst for the Moscow-based Carnegie Center think tank, said about 40-60 sorties a day were flown in the early stages of the campaign in Chechnya.

"Two hundred sorties seems quite unprecedented and pearl jewelry wholesale shows an intensity linked to the fact that Russian aviation is now dealing with mountain terrain that is much better protected from air strikes," he said.

Pikayev said the military looks set to continue that level of attack, given that it now seems to have sufficient funding for the operation.

But the Russians could suffer from the hit-and-run guerrilla tactics that proved successful in 1996 during the previous war, analysts say. The Russian army has pledged not to allow a repeat of that situation but has admitted it cannot always stop rebel infiltration into the areas it controls.

Pikayev said Russia may be able to pearl jewelry stop large bodies of rebels from invading federal-held territory but would have difficulty dealing with guerrilla operations carried out by individuals who stay in their homes during the day and strike at night.

As the war rages on, both sides face problems, Pikayev said. The Russians lack an exit strategy, while the rebels lost some of their top commanders when retreating from Grozny – without achieving any real result from holding the city for so long, he said.

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