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MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin has steered clear of comment on the contested U.S. presidential election, but has put the weeks of turmoil to good advantage with a barrage of policy initiatives. "If a confusing transition is bad for the United States, it's logical for Russia to take advantage of it," said one Western diplomat. |
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MOSCOW - Oil, metals and other valuables are being spirited out of Chechnya in enormous quantities by thieves - many in federal military uniform - while a trickle of Russian government funding headed back into the region seems mostly to have gone astray. |
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MOSCOW - The Russian government is talking of reviving a grandiose Stalin-era project to build a 10-kilometer tunnel under the Pacific Ocean to connect the mainland to the island of Sakhalin and then adding a 40-kilometer bridge over the ocean to connect Sakhalin to Japan. Officials from President Vladimir Putin on down have been talking up the project and suggest it could be under way by the end of next year. |
All photos from issue.
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TOKYO - A former Japanese naval officer admitted in court on Monday that he had sold defense secrets to a Russian military attache in Japan's most sensational espionage case in two decades. The trial opened just a day before Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev is due in Tokyo for a regular visit. |
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NEW YORK - Russian self-exiled media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky said on Sunday he was looking for a foreign investor to buy a sizable stake as soon as Christmas in Media-MOST group's television network NTV, which has been critical of President Vladimir Putin's administration. |
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President Vladimir Putin told Russia's judges on Monday they were overworked and underpaid, but urged them to be more aggressive in trying to establish the rule of law over his corruption-riddled country. Putin has pledged a "dictatorship of the law," making Russia's legal system work and smoothing out the disorder and chaos of the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. |
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Navy Late To Sue Pope MOSCOW (AP) - The judge in the espionage trial of U.S. businessman Edmond Pope on Friday rejected a civil suit from the Russian Navy demanding $255 million from Pope. |
 MOSCOW - Russia emphatically stepped back into the Middle East peace process Friday when President Vla dimir Putin got visiting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to speak by telephone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Israel immediately announced that its foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, would travel to Moscow next week. |
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Battling Russia's image as a black hole with respect to intellectual property, the Na bo kov Museum in St. Petersburg is spear heading a long-term project launched this fall that could affect the work of hundreds of cultural organizations: monitoring copyright laws in arts and culture. |
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WARSAW - Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on Thursday shrugged off a U.S. threat to impose new sanctions on Moscow over arms sales to Iran and said it alone would choose its own trade partners. Ivanov, addressing a news conference alongside his Polish opposite number, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, made no reference to Russia's decision to pull out of a 1995 deal with Washington on curtailing arms sales to Tehran. |
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VIENNA - The United States called on Russia on Monday to fulfill pledges it made a year ago to allow an international mission into Chechnya, withdraw troops from Moldova and Georgia and implement cuts in conventional forces. |
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A Tax Code II Guide to the 1st 183 Days Most of you are aware that the passage of amendments to the Tax Code which will become effective beginning Jan. 1, 2001, replaced Russia's three tax brackets with a flat 13 percent personal income tax rate. Because the amendments did a number of things in addition to changing the rate, application of the law to expatriates working for representative offices in Russia is about as clear as the results of a U. |
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MOSCOW - The Federal Securities Commission (FSC) says it is going to insist on being informed when foreigners buy shares in local companies. Russia's securities watchdog said on Friday that the notification must include a description of the transaction, the characteristics of the securities as well as the parties' and commissioner's details. |
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At a meeting on Friday, the board of directors at local energy utility Lenenergo approved a plan to issue Level 1 American Depository Receipts (ADR's). James Gerson, head of investor relations at Lenenergo said that approval of the agreement with the Bank of New York was the last official step in a process the company began in August to allow the ADRs to be sold over the counter in the United States. |
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MOSCOW - Defying the wishes of the country's top banker, the State Duma on Friday voted overwhelmingly for awarding the 2000 Central Bank audit to Deloitte & Touche CIS over rival PricewaterhouseCoopers, which audited the bank in 1998 and 1999. |
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MOSCOW - Just 20 minutes before deadline Friday, the government and the Central Bank submitted to the State Duma a group of amendments to the banking laws known as the IMF package. The new version by the government and the bank for changes to banking legislation was presented by Alexander Shokhin, head of the Duma's banking committee. |
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MOSCOW - As gears move on the mammoth restructuring of the country's floundering telecoms industry, Svyazinvest director Valery Yashin is seeking to calm any misgivings of shareholders in the country's 80-plus telecoms, which will be merged into seven regional holdings. |
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MOSCOW - Top cabinet ministers say the nation's oil companies are evading taxes on a startling scale and are pledging a crackdown. Oil barons counter that in a clumsy search for revenue now that the IMF has apparently let Moscow down, the government is ready to risk killing off the industry. |
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NEW YORK - Wall Street eyes more holiday cheer this week even without a definite end to the battle for the White House, as investors snap up more high-tech stocks from the bargain basement. |
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MOSCOW - The Federation Council showed its mettle, refusing to rubber stamp amendments to the second part of the Tax Code, postponing a vote until the end of December. To come into force by the end of the year, the amendments would had to have been signed by President Vladimir Putin by Dec. |
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Russian Markets Drop to Midsummer Index Levels Equities drifted down following the NASDAQ's dips and sank to their lowest level in five months. "Risk is not wanted. |
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Tobacco in Court NEW YORK (AP) - A lawsuit filed with little fanfare three years ago in Brooklyn has emerged as the latest flash point in the high-stakes legal battle between the tobacco industry and opponents who claim it conspired to conceal the dangers of smoking. |
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Pavlo Lazarenko reportedly stole millions from Ukraine's state coffers, but a fondness for fine Californian real estate may have proved to be his undoing. |
 MOSCOW - A deal appears to have been struck between Oleg Deripaska, head of metals giant Siberian Aluminum, and Nikolai Pugin, head of the nation's No. 2 automaker, GAZ, that could clear the way for the former to put its representatives on the Nizhny Novgorod-based auto plant's board. Siberian Aluminum, which refused to comment officially on its activities regarding GAZ before a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between the two directors, has been busy buying up shares in GAZ through its affiliated structures and has acquired more than 25 percent of the factory's shareholding. |
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Meetings and Raids Sideline City's Bankers THE St. Petersburg banking sector remained the focus of attention last week, when investigators passed on from their raid of Promstroibank to pay a visit to another other local organization, Baltiisky Bank. |
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Coup, Clucks Clan With their attempt to disenfranchise tens of thousands of black and Jewish voters temporarily sidetracked by the Florida Supreme Court this week, the bristling Bush clan began pumping the sludge in an effort to utterly destroy the ability of Al Gore to govern should he win the U. |
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Chechnya: Time To Say Enough IF the world needed yet another reminder of the scope of horror and suffering being inflicted daily in Chechnya, it received one Wednesday in the form of "Chechnya, the Politics of Terror," a report by the Nobel Prize-winning group Me decins Sans Frontieres. |
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A SMALL Associated Press obituary caught my eye a couple of weeks ago. Its headline read: "Lardner; writer, age 85." How terse and how inadequate. Ring Lardner Jr. |
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 ST. LOUIS, Missouri - The New Orleans Saints sent a clear message Sunday that they are to be taken seriously by stunning the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams 31-24 behind a rookie backup quarterback to move into a tie for first place in the NFC West. |
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RALEIGH, North Carolina - Randy Robitaille scored twice and Cliff Ronning had three assists in a four-goal first period as the Nashville Predators ended a 159-minute scoring drought with a 7-4 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes. |
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BOSTON - Shareef Abdur-Rahim came to FleetCenter Sunday and made himself at home, leaving the Boston Celtics decidedly put out. Abdur-Rahim scored eight of the Vancouver Grizzlies' last 10 points as they held Boston without a field goal over the final 4:55 to pull out a 98-87 victory, snapping their losing streak at seven games. |
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Cole Charges ADEN, Yemen (AP) - Yemeni investigators are ready to charge at least two people in the apparent terrorist attack on the USS Cole, a source said Sunday, six weeks after an explosion tore through the warship as it sat in Aden's harbor, killing 17 U. |
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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A U.S.-based anti-communist group says it was behind a shootout in Phnom Penh and has threatened to keep fighting until it overthrows the government, according to a Khmer-language radio report. "Some forces of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters attacked the government troops in Phnom Penh. |
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Twenty-four years after an Argentine "Dirty War" era death squad took both their lives, Jose Daniel Bronzel was finally buried on Sunday next to his wife in a humble Buenos Aires cemetery. |
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Heat Acquires Ceballos MIAMI (AP) - The Miami Heat, looking for help off the bench, acquired forward Cedric Ceballos from the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night for a conditional second-round draft choice. Ceballos is an 11-year veteran with career averages of 14. |
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INDIO, California - Colin Montgomerie made the fewest birdies but he sank a two-foot par putt worth $340,000 on the third playoff hole to walk away the big winner of the 18th annual Skins Game Sunday. |
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LONDON - Girondins Bordeaux took the honors as French leaders at the halfway stage of the season following a 0-0 draw at second-placed Sedan. Manchester United has gone eight points clear in England while AS Roma stretched its lead in Serie A after an emotional night for Gabriel Batistuta. England. Manchester United is now 1-12 favorites to win the premier league after opening an eight-point lead this weekend. The champions needed an hour to break through Derby County's defense at Pride Park but then goals by Teddy Sheringham, Nicky Butt and Dwight Yorke secured a 3-0 victory. Second-placed Arsenal made it five defeats and a draw from seven games, losing 1-0 to Olivier Dacort's free kick at Leeds United. |
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 LAKE LOUISE, Alberta - Austrian superstar Hermann Maier said good-bye to his girlfriend Sunday and went back to the business of winning World Cup ski races as he captured the first super-G of the season for the 30th World Cup victory of his storied career. |
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Following Zenit's general shareholders meeting last week, club president Vitaly Mutko and head coach Yury Morozov reviewed this past season and announced their plans for the future on Friday. Neither Mutko or Morozov would comment on who they were inviting to try out for the team. |
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STOCKHOLM - Sweden's Thomas Johansson defeated Russian second seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, in less than 90 minutes to claim the Stockholm Open title on Sunday. |
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