ITAR-TASS overnight news cycle for December 19 - 4.

.Russian frosts have no mercy on ATMs, mobiles or cars.

MOSCOW, December 19 (By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila
Alexandrova) -- The harsh frosts that have set in the European and Asian
areas of Russia (quite unusual even in the middle of December) have no
mercy on ATMs, mobiles, entry phones and motor vehicles. They even took
prisoner the visiting head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had to
delay his departure from the Russian capital.
In Moscow and around it air temperatures have repeatedly and firmly
sunk 20 degrees below freezing. Father to the east it is really chilling -
40 degrees below zero Celsius and more. Electronic gadgets in many cities
have proved unprepared to operate in such adverse conditions.
Frosts in Moscow, the Moscow Region and St. Petersburg have disabled a
hundred or so ATMs of the country's four largest banks. The machines were
unable to hand out cash. The client merely gets a check stating that the
requested sum has been written off his account. Quite often the ATMs just
swallowed the plastic cards and would not give it back.
Sources at Russia's largest savings bank, Sberbank, have explained
that at low temperatures the ATM's hardware may fail. The rubber suckers
that take out banknotes from the cassettes and issue them to the client
loose elasticity.
The previous massive disruption in the operation of banking
electronics occurred three years ago. Then low air temperatures upset
practically all ATMs in the Sverdlovsk Region.
Bankers say the problem is the main providers of ATMs to Russia are
China and Hungary, where they are not tested for reliable performance in
extreme conditions.
Entry phones, installed at the doors of all Russian apartment
buildings, were failing, too. The doors would either refuse to close or,
what is still worse, would not open. The tenants had to use force to get
inside. Tourniquets on public transport vehicles were going out of order
and proved unable to read information form frozen tickets.
Those motorists whose cars are stuffed with electronics experienced
great problems. In Tyumen, where 40-degree frosts are an every-day
occurrence, electronics just go dead.
Mobile phones are another headache. Under the standard operating
parameters the phones function normally at temperatures no greater than
minus five degrees below freezing. Should one try to make a call outdoors,
freezing breath may harm the mike.
In some regions today's frosts have proved real disaster, says the
trade union daily Trud. The boilers of some communities in Buryatia have
run out of fuel. In Petropavlovsk, the center of the same-name district,
all coal reserves have been burnt already, while the local authorities had
hoped the amount might well last till the end of the winter. Indoor
temperatures sank to just twelve degrees above zero.
In Tyumen, only good fortune prevented an air crash. An Antonov-2
single-engine biplane, which managed to take off the runway with twelve
passengers on board despite 42 degrees below freezing gathered a thick
coat of ice in an instant during the climb. Motor oil froze, too. The crew
had to make an emergency landing.
In Ufa, 40-degree frosts kept half of the city busses idle. And in the
Perm Region, where the air is as cold, about 170 departures of inter-city
busses had to be canceled.
In Verkhnyaya Pyshma, the Sverdlovsk Region, the animals of a mobile
zoo found themselves on the brink of death. When the local human rights
activists spotted a tiger cub half-dead with cold, the local nature
conservation prosecutor's office had to intervene. The probe resulted in
the opening of a criminal case on charges of cruel treatment of animals.
The zoo's owners may get a maximum term of two years in jail.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen's visit to Moscow had
quite an unexpected ending. He failed to fly back to Brussels Thursday
evening, contrary to the original schedule. The Belgian Air Force plane
proved unable to leave Moscow. It was too cold. The delegation had to
disembark and return to the hotel.
Cold dictates certain rules of behavior. Moscow's public transport
industry seems to have made thorough preparations in advance. All busses,
trolley-busses and streetcars are equipped with hot air fans that keep
warm air inside during stops. The fans start blowing down whenever the
doors open, so the air inside remains more or less comfortable. The doors
of all vehicles have been equipped with new insulators, and new heaters
were placed under the seats.
Next, the railways. They have had to use their entire fleet of
track-measuring carriages to be sure the rails are all right in this type
of cold weather.
The authorities have shown clemency and sympathy towards those who are
the hardest hit - the homeless and the pets. Homeless people are invited
to social hostels and shelters. There are eight such establishments in
Moscow. Their addresses and also the addresses of soup kitchens where
the down-and-outs may get free hot meals are on wall posters in metro
underpasses and also at railway stations, where vagabonds and tramps tend
to stop for the night.
Still, most homeless prefer to gather at railway stations, street
underpasses and metro entrances. Many of Moscow's 30,000 stray pets go
there, too, and as a rule, nobody dares drive them out.

-0-str