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Russian journalists are complaining about layoffs, audits and censorship. It seems voices critical of the Kremlin are to be banished from the media before the presidential election.

Ahead of the presidential elections on March 4, it seems that everything in the Russian media revolves around the Kremlin's candidate, Vladimir Putin. On television, in newspapers and on the Internet, he is ubiquitous.

The other four presidential candidates are given far less coverage in the media. Putin announced that he had no time for TV debates with them. The 59-year-old prime minister served two terms as president from 2000-2008 and wants to return to the role once more.

Radio station stifled

Putin puts forward his case on the internet

To keep everything the way Putin likes it, critical media are under increasing pressure. This can be seen, for example, in the moves made against staff at the radio station Ekho Moskvy, which has long been the most critical voice in the country. Some three weeks before the presidential election, the station's main shareholder, Gazprom Media - a subsidiary of state-controlled energy company Gazprom - fired editor-in-chief Alexei Venediktov and three other directors from the station's board of directors.

Venediktov said it was clear the intent was to increase pressure on Ekho Moskvy, so that the station would in future report positively about Putin. The prime minister had recently berated Venediktov using coarse language, accusing the station of failing to report about him in an appropriate manner and of serving US interests.

"It is clear that Gazprom has instructed its people to work flat out before the elections," Alexei Simonov, head of Moscow's Glasnost Defense Foundation, told DW. Gazprom Media has become active in other instances, he said. Of note is the dismissal of four senior managers of the Russian publishing house Kommersant by its owner Alisher Usmanov, who is also Managing Director of Gazprominvestholding, another Gazprom subsidiary.

Authorities target Dozhd TV station

Alexei Venediktov was fired from the board of Ekho Moskvy

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Kremlin turns up the pressure on critical media

A place to relax ... an Iranian woman emerges from the water after riding a jetski at Kish Island. Photo: Getty Images

As the scorching rays of the Middle Eastern sun bore down, I plunged into the sea, desperately happy to feel cool water against my skin. I had been wrapped in a hijab all day in 45-degree heat. A dip at the beach offered the only respite.

But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, women must not show their hair or skin, let alone wear bikinis in public. A woman caught wearing a miniskirt could be sentenced to 50 lashes. Could wearing a bikini land me in jail?

With its white-sand beaches, tax-free shopping and luxury hotels, Kish Island is the Iranian equivalent of Hawaii or Bali. It's well known for being more relaxed than the mainland and is popular with holidaying Persians. Iranian women can be a bit more carefree, mingling with the opposite sex, riding jet skis and walking on the beach with their headscarves loosened and trousers rolled up. But this island is no Ibiza. The strict laws of the Islamic regime apply.

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Dancing is forbidden, as I discovered while watching a live Farsi band at a restaurant. Iranians make do with clapping their hands to the music.

Though beachside touts offered me bootleg booze in whispered hisses ("Absolut vodka? Johnnie Walker?"), alcohol is otherwise illegal, meaning no pina coladas by the pool. And while the island is surrounded by calm beaches fringed by swaying palm trees, men and women are forbidden to swim together. A bikini in public? It seemed unlikely.

There is one place on the island where bikinis and skimpy thongs are permitted, however: behind the three-metre walls of a women-only beach.

Eager to escape the sweaty confines of my hijab, I paid the entrance fee and passed a security desk, staffed by uniformed female security guards, to ensure no cameras or mobile phones made it past the gate.

Beyond the doors was a beach that could have been anywhere in the world. The sand was lined with umbrellas and towels. A kiosk served cold drinks and food. There was even a scuba diving centre.

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From hijab to skimpy bikini: behind the walled beach

When Freddy and Lori Rongier opened Paris 66 in 2009, they had large aspirations but limited means. They couldn't afford much professional equipment in the small Penn Circle space, said Mr. Rongier, so chef Cesar Dubs devised a menu of crepes, salads and a few specials.

The popular restaurant grew profitable, and the Rongiers put that money right back into the business, buying a range and hood, and building a pastry kitchen into the basement, so that Paris 66, still a creperie during the day, could become a full-scale French bistro at night.

Paris 66

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Recommended dishes: Beef carpaccio, endive and beet salad, chicken basquaise, carre d'agneau aux truffes, champ de mars galette, passion fruit mousse, la trocadero crepe.

As the restaurant changed, so the did the staff. After Mr. Dubs' visa expired, he returned to France, and Larry Laffont took over the kitchen in early 2011. Mr. Laffont, originally from the Bordeaux region in France, had previously worked in a number of Pittsburgh restaurants, heading up the kitchen at Le Perroquet in Shadyside (now closed), as well as Dish Osteria, Mallorca and Ibiza on the South Side, before leaving the city for several years.

The much-expanded menu hits all the highlights of classic bistro cooking: Escargot in parsley butter, beef carpaccio, duck confit, etc. In spirit, if not precisely in cuisine, it conjures up a casual dinner in Paris, the long narrow space filled with laughter and conversation, the food a delicious reminder of our long love affair with simple French cooking.

Originally posted here:
Paris 66, once a creperie, is now a full-scale French bistro

By Max Abelson - Wed Feb 29 19:42:53 GMT 2012

Raul Belinchon/Gallerystock.com

Photographer: Raul Belinchon/Gallerystock.com

On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Euro Pacific Capital Inc. via Bloomberg

Andrew Schiff, director of communications and marketing at Euro Pacific Capital Inc.

Andrew Schiff, director of communications and marketing at Euro Pacific Capital Inc. Source: Euro Pacific Capital Inc. via Bloomberg

Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.

Im not Zen at all, and when Im freaking out about the situation, where Im stuck like a rat in a trap on a highway with no way to get out, its very hard, Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., said in an interview.

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Wall Street Bonus Withdrawal Means Cheap Chex

Andrew Schiff was sitting in a traffic jam in California this month after giving a speech at an investment conference about gold. He turned off the satellite radio, got out of the car and screamed a profanity.

"I'm not Zen at all, and when I'm freaking out about the situation, where I'm stuck like a rat in a trap on a highway with no way to get out, it's very hard," Schiff, director of marketing for broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc., said in an interview.

Schiff, 46, is facing another kind of jam this year: Paid a lower bonus, he said the $350,000 he earns, enough to put him in the country's top 1 percent by income, doesn't cover his family's private-school tuition, a Kent, Connecticut, summer rental and the upgrade they would like from their 1,200-square- foot Brooklyn duplex.

"I feel stuck," Schiff said. "The New York that I wanted to have is still just beyond my reach."

The smaller bonus checks that hit accounts across the financial-services industry this month are making it difficult to maintain the lifestyles that Wall Street workers expect, according to interviews with bankers and their accountants, therapists, advisers and headhunters.

"People who don't have money don't understand the stress," said Alan Dlugash, a partner at accounting firm Marks Paneth & Shron LLP in New York who specializes in financial planning for the wealthy. "Could you imagine what it's like to say I got three kids in private school, I have to think about pulling them out? How do you do that?"

Bonus Caps

Facing a slump in revenue from investment banking and trading, Wall Street firms have trimmed 2011 discretionary pay. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Barclays Capital, the cuts were at least 25 percent. Morgan Stanley (MS) capped cash bonuses at $125,000, and Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) increased the percentage of deferred pay.

"It's a disaster," said Ilana Weinstein, chief executive officer of New York-based search firm IDW Group LLC. "The entire construct of compensation has changed."

Most people can only dream of Wall Street's shrinking paychecks. Median household income in 2010 was $49,445, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, lower than the previous year and less than 1 percent of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's $7 million restricted-stock bonus for 2011. The percentage of Americans living in poverty climbed to 15.1 percent, the highest in almost two decades.

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Bonus Withdrawal Puts Bankers in "Malaise"