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Standard & Poor's raised Russia's sovereign rating to investment grade on Monday, becoming the last of the three big credit agencies to reward the country for financial prudence as high oil prices swell government coffers. S&P raised Russia's long-term foreign currency credit rating from BB+ to BBB-, the lowest investment grade. |
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Protests against the federal government ending in-kind benefits for pensioners continued at the weekend in St. Petersburg, but this time with the approval of City Hall, unlike those two weeks ago when unauthorized protests led to clashes with police. |
All photos from issue.
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 State Duma deputy and city businessman Kirill Ragozin is missing presumed drowned Monday in the Gulf of Finland after his snowmobile went through thin ice on Saturday afternoon. The Leningrad Oblast emergency service was searching for his body. "Unfortunately, we haven't found it," Yulia Rakita, spokeswoman for the service, said Monday. |
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A group of men who helped clean up after the 1986 Chernobyl power plant disaster gave up their hunger strike after 16 days on Saturday after receiving assurances that many of their demands, mainly for higher compensation for their damaged health, would be met. |
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One of Russia's leading marathon runners Mikhail Minukhin, 31, of St. Petersburg, who had his spleen removed after being stabbed in a robbery in October, has started recovery training. Minukhin said Monday it would take him at least 1 1/2 years to recover his physical form. |
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Film wins BBC prize ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - "The Return" ("Vozvrashcheniye") has been named winner of the BBC Four World Cinema Award, BBC news reported on its web site on Friday. |
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Japanese holding company Sumitomo signed a deal with water-supply monopoly Vodokanal that will result in a more than doubling of the city's water-treatment capacity levels. The multi-billion dollar Japanese holding will form a 50-50 joint venture company with Vodokanal by fall this year. |
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MOSCOW - Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov on Friday urged senior intelligence officials to do their best to improve the country's investment climate, promising them more money to get the job done. |
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DAVOS, Switzerland - Nearly half of the 45 Russian senators that signed a letter to the Federal Tax Service asking for a probe into tax payments by Russian-British oil major TNK-BP have withdrawn their signatures, the tax service said Friday. Vedomosti reported Friday that 45 members of the Federation Council had sent tax authorities a formal request to check whether TNK-BP had underpaid by 22 billion rubles ($783 million) in taxes in 2000-2003. |
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Kappa Has Russia Deal MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - BasicNet SpA, an Italian sportswear company, will let Moscow-based SLL Kappa Rus distribute its goods in Russia and other former Soviet states, following similar agreements to expand sales in France, Canada and the U. |
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Gold Reserves Up 2% MOSCOW (Bloomberg) - Russia's gold production rose 2 percent last year to 180.52 metric tons, Interfax reported, citing the Gold Producer's Union. Mine production rose 0.5 percent to 158.83 tons, Interfax reported. Secondary production, including recovery from scrap, jumped 65 percent to 11. |
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MOSCOW - Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov on Friday slammed German Gref's medium-term plan as ideologically flawed, saying the Economic Development and Trade minister ignored "the crimes and mistakes of the 1990s. |
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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin is backing a government proposal to curb aggressive tax probes in an attempt to soothe investor concern, Vedomosti reported Thursday. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin have drawn up amendments to the Tax Code that significantly limit the powers of tax authorities in their dealings with companies, the paper said. |
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Recently in Russia there has emerged the almost daily problem of domestic and foreign companies being landed with tax claims from legislative and other government bodies. |
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The Russian economy slowed considerably in the second half of 2004. Although this in itself was not a surprise, the deceleration was stronger than had generally been anticipated. According to the latest official data, year-on-year real GDP growth slowed to 6.4 percent in the third quarter of 2004 from 7.4 percent in the first half of the year. State Statistics Service data for 2004 as a whole is as yet unavailable. Estimates differ of the magnitude of the slowdown in the second half of 2004 and in the year as whole. According to real GDP estimates compiled by Moscow Narodny Bank based on their surveys of confidence in the manufacturing and services sectors, growth declined to 4. |
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 City authorities will allocate 500 hectares for industrial development on the outskirts of St. Petersburg by 2015, according to new city construction guidelines. |
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A German firm is set to invest 10 billion euros ($13 billion) into the rejuvenation of Moskovsky district housing by replacing decaying khrushchyovki apartment blocks with modern 16-story houses, Interfax reported. The multi-billion euro project that spanning 10 years will be run by Peter Dussmann, a subsidiary of the German corporation The Dussmann Group. |
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LSR Invests $6 million ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Development group LSR will invest $6 million over three years into a low-level housing project that will provide 7,000 square meters of residential space in the Sestroretsk area, business daily Delovoi Petersburg reported late last month. |
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The Western media were on the right side on Ukraine, while Russia was on the wrong side. But the reporting was almost as unsound in the West as it was in Russia. Even a cursory glance revealed that something was amiss. The media were strangely unanimous in their views. |
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The scandal about free rides for pensioners is nearing its end so this is a good opportunity for an initial summary. Initial because, I hope, the conflict over the replacement of in-kind benefits is not yet decided. |
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Car Explosion DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) - A car loaded with explosives blew up in the Tajik capital Dushanbe on Monday morning, killing the driver and wounding three other people, the emergency situations minister said. There was no immediate indication of who was responsible. |
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LONDON - Chelsea made record English soccer losses of Pound88 million ($166 million) in 2003-04, their first season under the ownership of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, the Premier League club said Sunday. |
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Issues Archive