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The St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office has accused the St. Petersburg administration of fiddling while parts of the city were burning. An investigation into this summer's blazes carried out by the office concluded that the St. Petersburg administration violated federal fire-safety laws. The violations hindered the fight against the blazes, and allowed new fires to flare up, a report by the office said. "Because of the absence of preventive measures against peat fires on the territory of St. Petersburg, and unsatisfactory organization of fire safety measures by officials of the St. Petersburg administration ... there were a whole series of peat and grass fires at the beginning of September,'' stated the report, a copy of which was obtained by the St. |
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 TOKSOVO, Leningrad Oblast - Human-rights group Memorial believes it has discovered the secret main burial site for the northern capital's about 40,000 victims of Stalin's Great Terror in 1937 to 1938. |
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MOSCOW - Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Moscow was prepared to unleash preventive strikes on militants in Georgia, and that he would give U.S. officials evidence of a terrorist presence across Russia's southern border. "If we see that bandits are headed in our direction and only 10 to 15 kilometers are left before the border, should we wait for them to cross the border, kill someone and disperse?" Ivanov, who is on a trip to Washington, said on television Thursday. |
All photos from issue.
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MOSCOW - The European Union's executive body said Wednesday it will consider allowing visa-free travel to Russian citizens going between the Kaliningrad exclave and the rest of Russia in sealed, high-speed trains. The European Commission also suggested giving facilitated transit documents to frequent travelers, to allow multiple trips through Lithuania and Poland after they join the EU in 2004. |
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Police have named two suspects wanted in connection with the murder of State Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova four years ago. The feisty democrat was gunned down on Nov. |
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Lawmakers at Wednesday's session of the city parliament finally decided on Dec. 8, as the date for elections of a new legislative assembly. Forty-two lawmakers voted for a law on the election drafted by Legislative Assembly Vice Speaker Vadim Tyulpanov and lawmaker Vitaly Kalinin. |
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Stopping racist murders is a job not only for the police, but also for the public, Mikhail Vanichkin, head of the police in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Oblast, said at a news conference Thursday. |
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MOSCOW - When President Vladimir Putin barks an order, the government only springs into action about half of the time. And many of the orders he made last year remain unfulfilled. The findings by the presidential administration's oversight agency shatter a widespread belief that the tough-talking Putin is also a tough administrator who always gets things done. Red tape and a lack of understanding about how to implement the orders were the main barriers blocking their fulfillment, the Main Control Directorate said. While Putin is nowhere close to Josef Stalin in spurring his people into action, he is well ahead of former President Boris Yeltsin. |
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 MOSCOW - U.S. pop star Lance Bass's failure to come up with cash for an October flight to the international space station will probably delay production of the Soyuz-TMA module, a senior Energia official said. |
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MOSCOW - Foreign nationals visiting or living in Russia will be covered by the nationwide census next month just like their Russian neighbors, in part to help the government design its migration and labor policy, officials from the State Statistics Committee said. |
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MOSCOW - After three failed votes, hours of vitriol and a good deal of political arm-twisting, centrist and liberal lawmakers managed on Wednesday to push through a bill introducing restrictions on nationwide referendums. |
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St. Petersburg played host this week to the 50th International Congress of the Association of Female-Entrepreneurs, which ran from Sunday to Thursday, attracting 300 participants from 60 countries. The congress focussed on the work of female entrepreneurs and ways to develop international cooperation between them. |
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MOSCOW - Driven by popular demand, banks imported more euros than dollars in July for the first time since cash euros became available, the Central Bank said on its web site, Monday. |
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FOR seven years, a United Nations team of inspectors under my direction uncovered biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in Iraq by scouring financial records, tracking down imported equipment, searching laboratories and bases, and accounting for every one of the more than 900 Scud missiles that the Soviet Union had provided to Baghdad. |
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MOSCOW Mayor Yury Luzhkov has a mixed track record when it comes to beautifying the city. Many Muscovites heaved a sigh of relief when Luzhkov decided to pull down the boxy Intourist hotel on Tverskaya Ulitsa. |
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 As a general rule, the contemporary artistic life of every city revolves around a few arts centers that serve, simultaneously, as barometers and trend-setters. In St. Petersburg, Pushkinskaya 10 would be one of these; its Moscow equivalent would probably be the Art Squat at 13 Baumanskaya Ul. Now, those familiar with the St. Petersburg insititution have the chance to see works from the Moscow version at "V Rabochem Poryadke" ("Work in Progress"), an exhibition of works by the Moscow "art squatters" that opened last week at the Dmitriy Semenov Gallery. |
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 Although only six months have elapsed since its last album, "Superprize," local band Multfilmy is already releasing a follow up. The 40-minute, 13-track album, entitled "Vitaminy" ("Vitamins") is the third for the band, which draws its influences from contemporary Western pop, and contains seven brand new songs, alongside six that were written during the past five years but never released. |
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Red Club will celebrate its first anniversary over this weekend, with a concert by the band that played at the club's opening last year. Deadushki, the electronica band fronted by ex-members of the seminal ska band Stranniye Igry (Strange Games), Viktor Sologub and Alexei Rakhov, will play on Friday. |
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Just as a catchy pop tune spreads through a city's airwaves and takes over its radio stations, the restaurant chain Yakitoriya, which specializes in Japanese cuisine, is infecting Russia. |
 The build-up to the celebrations for St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary is already approaching fever pitch. Countless exhibitions, festivals, concerts and renovation projects are underway, both to celebrate this city's remarkable history - and make it a more desirable destination for tourists. "Black & White Petersburg," an exhibit that opened this week at the Museum of the History of St. |
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 Sunday's concert at the Shostakovich Philharmonic was highlighted by a rare performance by tenor Vladimir Atlantov, who was an idol of Soviet audiences at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater before he left for Vienna in 1978. |
 MOSCOW - American Martin Robinson had brought his fuzzy purple puppet all the way to Moscow from New York - the doll that would assist him in casting one of five young Russian men in a television role. They listened to him intently, their serious expressions hidden by puppets of their own. "That was great. I liked your technique, your position," said Robinson, who is the puppeteer who plays the characters Telly and Snuffleupagus on the U. |
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 The recent passing of the 20th century has brought with it the inevitable attempts to try to sum up its results, and to determine the place and role of man - in the broadest sense of the word - during that period. |
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German Election BERLIN (Reuters) - The German election race, which has seen Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder make a dramatic comeback as floods and war fears have distracted from a sluggish economy, is headed for a photo finish on Sunday, new polls indicated Wednesday. |
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With a new coach, new and returning players, and massive injections of finance and optimism, local ice-hockey team SKA has its sights set on making the league playoffs this year. |
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