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 It's hardly surprising that most self-respecting St. Petersburg residents treasure their umbrellas so highly, as the city's climate has been a problem since its foundation almost 300 years ago. The main problem is precipitation: It rains in fall, drizzles in spring, snows in winter, and not even a sunny summer day is immune from a torrential downpour. Sometimes, however, the clouds can hold off for weeks. |
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 MOSCOW - Girding itself for upcoming elections, the pro-Kremlin United Russia party got some notable additions over the weekend, plumping its list of high-profile principals with a third cabinet minister, half a dozen regional governors, a career KGB officer and a former intelligence agent. |
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The Federal Audit Chamber announced Monday that it would file a complaint with the Prosecutor General's Office against the St. Petersburg City Administration because the latter "systematically ignores" the chamber's rulings regarding the investigation into mismanagement of federal funds earmarked for the preparations of the city's 300th anniversary. |
All photos from issue.
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 Four people were shot dead and another is in serious condition after a gunman opened fire in an electronic-slot-machine parlor at 36 Sredny Prospect on Vasilievsky Island on Saturday morning. All four murder victims - Central District Police Sergeant Pavel Romanov, slot-machine operator Anna Pavlova, cashier Gennady Latyshev and cleaner Galina Shibitova - worked for the gaming parlor, with Romanov providing security under a contract with the city police. |
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Hollow Victory HELSINKI (Reuters) - Hollowed out logs are the latest gimmick used by Finns smuggling cigarettes and alcohol from Russia. Finnish customs said on Friday it had broken an organized-crime ring that used trucks carrying hollowed out logs to smuggle millions of cigarettes and alcohol from Russia. |
 KHASAVYURT, Southern Russia - Saddam Hussein deftly fastened a scope sight to his Kalashnikov rifle, lifted the weapon above his head in a trademark posture and pulled the trigger. No report followed. In fact, it could not follow. The gun was a plastic toy, and this Hussein was but a seven-year-old boy. |
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MOSCOW - Ukraine's arms export agency denied on Monday a report in U.S. magazine Newsweek that Ukrainian dealers sold Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles to Iraq in violation of UN- sanctions. |
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In a surprise move Monday, President Vladimir Putin named Russia's former Miss Universe as a deputy prime minister. Oksana Fyodorova takes over the post vacated by Valentina Matviyenko, who left the government earlier this month to become Putin's envoy in the Northwestern Federal District. Fyodorova, a ranking police detective and current co-host of the popular children's show "Spokoinoi Noch, Malyshi," ("Good Night, Children") will take up her post Tuesday after presenting her last show on Rossiya television. |
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 A seminar on Thursday evening that was organized to provide the foreign business community here with answers to questions about Russia's new visa and work-permit rules suggested that it will take more time to iron out some of the bugs in the new system. |
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MOSCOW - After ordering domestic farmers to destroy 360,000 eggs and almost 90,000 chicks to counter a deadly avian-flu strain from the Netherlands, the Agriculture Ministry on Monday threatened to ban all poultry imports from the European Union. |
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MOSCOW - Unified Energy Systems and Gazprom, together with five other industrial giants, plan to extend their reach into the country's households with a $700-million investment launching a residential-utility-services joint venture. The UES board has given the green light to the power monopoly's participation in Russian Communal Systems, a new company that will overhaul Russia's floundering state and municipal communal-services sector. Gazprom and UES will both hold 25-percent stakes, while the other five investors - Interros, Renova, Kuzbassrazrezugol, Evrazholding and Evrofinans - will have 10 percent apiece. The new company will work with regional authorities who currently administrate public services to take management control of last-mile electricity and heat networks, as well as gas, water and garbage disposal, board member David Herne was quoted by Reuters as saying in a letter to investors Monday. |
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 A plan to build Russia's first large, Western-style park for light-industry, logistics service providers and warehouses was presented recently at the MIPIM conference for international real-estate professionals in Cannes, France. |
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MOSCOW - The government will choose a consultant within six weeks to recommend the size, price and timing of the next auction for a stake in national fixed-line telephone operator Svyazinvest, Communications Minister Leonid Reiman said Friday. The adviser will be chosen by, and will join, a group currently working on the next stage of Svyazinvest's privatization, including officials from the Communications and Property ministries and the State Property Fund, Reiman told an investment conference. |
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MOSCOW - Just five months after being removed from an international blacklist of non-cooperative countries in the global fight against terrorism and money laundering, Russia has decided to create its own catalog of countries considered to be engaged in inappropriate financial activities. |
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PARIS - Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Friday that the war in Iraq was unlikely to hurt Russia's economy, and he hoped Moscow's differences with Washington over the war wouldn't damage relations. "We consider that what the U.S. is doing in Iraq is a mistake, but I hope it won't affect our bilateral relationship," Kudrin said at a news conference following meetings with officials of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Russia has strongly criticized the U.S. military action, but has insisted that its disagreement with Washington will not damage ties. Kudrin said he did not expect his country's economy to suffer any negative economic repercussions from the war. |
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 MOSCOW - For years, the paramilitary State Customs Committee, or GTK, has acted like a state within a state, patrolling the entry and exit points for all goods coming in and out of the country and exacting trillions of rubles in taxes and tributes from importers and exporters alike. |
 MOSCOW - Futuristic space technology and Russia's creaking train system might seem light years apart, but a construction company in Ukraine is changing all that. Their concept of train cars made with space-age materials may be a reality as early as August. |
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MOSCOW - A late start in production this year depressed automakers' first quarter figures by almost 15 percent, after the industry shut down due to oversupply at the end of last year. |
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Editor, I can not understand the tight link that U.S. President George W. Bush sees between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people. We in Russia lived under a terrible dictatorship for a long time. Both of my grandfathers, a judge and an economics professor, perished under the Bolshevik regime, in 1919 and 1930, respectively. |
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THIS week sees Council of Europe parliamentarians meeting to discuss, once again, the conflict in Chechnya. Except, this time, a proposal from one member is set to ruffle feathers. |
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CHECHNYA held its referendum last week, and the Kremlin once more declared victory. According to the official government line, fighters who attack Russian forces from now on will be acting in violation of the law - the republic's newly adopted constitution, that is - and against the will of their own people. |
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Blood on the Tracks Before the first cruise missile crushed the first skull of the first child killed in the first installment of George W. Bush's crusade for world dominion, the unelected plutocrats occupying the White House were already plying their corporate cronies with fat contracts to "repair" the murderous devastation they were about to unleash on Iraq. |
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Milosovic Trial THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic denied Monday that he was involved in the slaying of his predecessor as his UN war-crimes trial resumed after a two-week delay due to his poor health. |
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Love Game PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida (AP) - Davis Love III pulled away with five straight birdies and closed with an 8-under 64 to match the best final round by the winner in the 30-year history of The Players Championship, known as the fifth major. |
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