LOCAL NEWS

SUICIDE BOMBERS KILL 13 IN MOSCOW

President Vladimir Putin, speaking two days after suicide bombers killed 13 at a Moscow rock festival, said Monday that Russia will stand strong against terrorism and promised to hunt down and destroy Chechen terrorist groups.

"They must be plucked out of the basements and caves where they remain hiding and destroyed.

LENOBLAST VOTE SEES RETURN OF OLD FACE

The field of potential candidates for the Sept. 21 St. Petersburg gubernatorial elections continues to grow as nine people have already informed the City Election Commission of their intention to run for the office.

PLAYING AWAY FROM HOME IS NOTHING NEW HERE

Last week, Andrei Li was looking as he does every night for a place to sleep on the streets. The Sakhalin native survives by selling a newspaper for the homeless.

On Monday, he had a Schengen visa in his new passport and was walking around the streets of Graz, Austria, as a representative of Russia in the first Homeless World Cup.

GROZNY LOOKING FOR VOUCHERS

MOSCOW - The pro-Moscow Chechen administration is pressing Moscow to pay about $33 million for losses incurred to residents who did not get privatization vouchers in the early 1990s.

An Inventor Attempts To Save the World

Editor's note: This is the first of two stories.

MOSCOW - Lev Maximov has engines in his head. Metals levitate in his mind. His dreams are nuclear.

The 66-year-old pensioner and inexhaustible inventor gets better with age, registering a dozen patents in the last two years alone. Of the 60 or so unique gizmos to his credit, he's certain that at least a couple can literally save the world - or at least make it a much safer place to live.

NATIONAL NEWS

KHODOROVSKY CAUGHT BY SHIFTING POLITICS

MOSCOW - The pressure on Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky reflects a shifting balance of power in the Kremlin, where players who have emerged during Vladimir Putin's presidency are asserting themselves to challenge well-established alliances between the old guard, leading financial-industrial groups and political parties ahead of the elections.

QUESTIONS REMAIN IN JOURNALIST'SDEMISE

MOSCOW - Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday to pay tribute to investigative journalist and State Duma Deputy Yury Shchekochikhin and urge the authorities to find out the cause of his death.

POPULAR BIRD AGAIN FLIES COOP

Weighing a mere five kilograms and just 11 centimeters in height, "Chizhik Pyzhik", a bronze sculpture of a Siskin, which usually occupies a perch on the Fontanka River near the Mikhailovsky Castle is a favorite with tourists, newlyweds and, unfortunately, thieves.

IN BRIEF

Krotov Quits

ST.PETERSBURG (SPT) - Victor Krotov, the head of the City Hall Financial Committee has voluntarily resigned, Interfax reported on Monday, quoting the City Hall press-service.

LOCAL BUSINESS

LEADING BANKS MAKE TOP 1,000

MOSCOW - Wide-scale reform of the banking sector may still be a long way off, but at least some Russian banks are making a name for themselves abroad.

Fifteen Russian banks are among the top 1,000 in the world and 14 are in the top 25 in Central and Eastern Europe, according to an annual report by The Banker, published in the magazine's July issue.

PROFITS AT TWO OIL MAJORS SHOOT UP IN WAKE OF WAR

MOSCOW - Carefully timing each other's moves, the country's two largest oil companies issued their first quarter results Monday - and both blew market expectations away.

Russia Threatens More Poultry Restrictions

MOSCOW - Ongoing food safety fears may prompt Russia to ban all imports of poultry and poultry products from the European Union after July 11, according to an Agriculture Ministry document issued after talks with EU veterinary officials in Brussels on Friday.

The Russian delegation, headed by First Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergei Dankvert, accused the EU of using double health standards for imports and exports.

OPINION

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW, THEN DON'T ASK

WASHINGTON - Did the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear-weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

THE INTELLIGENCE GAMES REMAIN THE SAME

The row in Britain over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - or their absence - intensified last week. Journalists accused the authorities of having "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's illegal weapons, published last September, by inserting a line about Saddam Hussein having a 45-minute capability (see story, page 5).

RAISING GDP THROUGH ENERGY

The Russian administration wants to have its cake and eat it too, at least as far as the tariffs of Gazprom and Unified Energy Systems are concerned.

President Vladimir Putin recently, in his state of the nation address, set the goal of doubling the country's GDP over the next decade.

PUTTING THE CUFFS ON PR AND THE ELECTORAL IMAGE

In Ilf and Petrov's classic novel "The Golden Calf," the underground millionaire Koreiko leads a quiet, unassuming life. Soviet workers, after all, drove plain old Zhigulis.

WORLD

SPORT WATCH

Bryant Surrenders

DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) - Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant has surrendered to police in Colorado after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her at a mountain resort, authorities said on Sunday.

Bryant, 24, was released after turning himself in and posting a $25,000 bond on Friday, a statement issued by the Eagle County Sheriff's office said.