LOCAL NEWS

RYDNIK DROPS HIS CITY COURT APPEAL

In a decision much like that made less than a month earlier by one of his political allies, Legislative Assembly Lawmaker Yury Rydnik announced on Saturday that he was withdrawing his appeal of a City Court ruling that he should be stripped of his place in the assembly.

On Feb. 28, the City Court ruled that Rydnik had broken electoral laws during his campaign in the run up to last December's elections and that his victory in electoral district No. 41 should be annulled. Rydnik, who is the head of the United City bloc, which had been Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's source of support in the Legislative Assembly, immediately filed an appeal of the decision with Russia's Supreme Court.

MOURNERS SAY FAREWELLS TO MURDERED POLITICIAN

MOSCOW - Hundreds of people - politicians, lawmakers and ordinary Russians - came on Sunday to bid a last farewell to Sergei Yushenkov, a rare critic of the government in the State Duma.

NATIONAL NEWS

LENENERGO BOSS OUT OF RACE FOR GOVERNOR

As the buildup to the next gubernatorial elections hots up following Governor Vladimir Yakovlev's confirmation that he will not run for a third term, another major potential candidate appears to have bowed out of the race.

Andrei Likhachyov, general director of local power monopoly Lenenergo, confirmed at a press conference on Monday that he would not run for the post if Valentina Matviyenko, the newly appointed presidential representative for the Northwest Region, ran for the office.

AWKWARD QUESTIONS RAISED BY MURDER

MOSCOW - State Duma deputies mourned the loss of Sergei Yushenkov, the Liberal Russia leader shot dead by an unknown gunman, and unleashed a storm of criticism against the government for failing to crack down on crime.

IN BRIEF

Budanov Retrial Begins

ROSTOV-NA-DONU, Southern Russia (AP) - A military court in Rostov-on-Don began a retrial Monday of Colonel Yury Budanov, who has admitted killing an 18-year-old Chechen woman, Elza Kungayeva, but so far evaded conviction.

During Monday's court session in the North Caucasus Military Court in Rostov-Na-Donu, Abdulla Khamzayev, a lawyer for woman's family, called for Judge Vladimir Bukreyev to be removed, claiming that he had not acted to stem insults and threats against Khamzayev and the victim's family and that he was biased against Chechens.

LOCAL BUSINESS

CUSTOMS CODE PASSED BY DUMA

MOSCOW - It took 3 1/2 years, but the State Duma on Friday finally passed in the key second reading a new Customs Code that will replace the Byzantine code cobbled together in haste a decade ago.

Lawmakers passed the code, which is hundreds of pages long and contains 439 articles, by a vote of 396-1 with no abstentions.

GROWTH SURPASSES EXPECTATIONS

MOSCOW - The economy surged by an annual rate of growth of 6.4 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared with 3.7 percent in the same period in 2002, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said at a cabinet meeting Thursday.

RusAl, Base Element Face Investigation, File Seizures

MOSCOW - Interior Ministry investigators have raided Oleg Deripaska's Base Element and Russian Aluminum offices, confiscating documents as part of an ongoing investigation initiated by Deripaska adversary Andrei Andreyev, who claims the oligarch stole his assets.

Andreyev, an entrepreneur, says he is the legal owner of majority stakes in insurers Ingosstrakh (controlled by Base Element) and Rossia, as well as Avtobank and dozens of other companies that were sold - without his consent, he says - in September 2001.

OPINION

THE PROSPECTS FOR LUCRATIVE WEST QURNA FIELD

WITH the war on Iraq seemingly over, attention is turning to the country's future. Russian interests in the country include past and future trade, debt and oil. LUKoil is the major Russian company involved and the one most at risk of any backlash against non-U.

DIVIDING AND CONQUERING BUREAUCRATS

AT the end of the 14th century, Chu Yuan-chang, first emperor of the Ming dynasty, decided to root out bribery in China. Guilty officials were beaten with sticks and put in stocks.

JOINING IS THE EASY PART

LAST year, the NATO summit in Prague issued an official invitation to a number of eastern European countries, including the Baltic States, to become members of the alliance. Shortly afterward, the European Union, in Copenhagen, made a commitment to accept most of the former Eastern bloc countries.

HOW FAR HAS RUSSIA REALLY PROGRESSED?

THE shocking and senseless murder of Sergei Yushenkov serves as a grim reminder of just how little progress has been made since the high-profile murders of Moskovsky Komsomolets investigative journalist Dmitry Kholodov and ORT head Vlad Listyev almost a decade ago.

SAYING FAREWELL TO AN UNUSUAL HUMAN BEING

IN May 1988, the magazine Vek XX i Mir held a round-table discussion entitled: "The Army and Society." In those days, Glasnost had only just begun to shed some light on the Soviet armed forces, as the first articles on hazing and other "non-regulation" behavior in the ranks were published.

CHRIS FLOYD'S GLOBAL EYE

Desolation Row

In recent days, the perverse moral calculus that guides the masters of war in the White House has revealed itself with startling clarity - laid bare, like the gurgling intestines of a three-year-old child whose skin has been flayed by a fragmentation bomb.