.Robbers attack cash-in-transit van, steal cash.

MOSCOW, December 20 (Itar-Tass) -Two armed robbers attacked a
cash-in-transit van in the west of Moscow late on Saturday. The incident
occurred near the Gorbushkin Dvor trade centre, a Moscow police source
told Itar-Tass.

"According to preliminary reports, two unidentified robbers wearing
masks attacked the driver of a cash-in-transit van while the bill
collectors were collecting cash from a bank. The robbers strapped the man
with handcuffs to the van, took bags with money and escaped," the source
went on to say.
He said that no one had been hurt in the attack and added that police
were trying to establish how much money had been stolen.
This is a second armed attack on bill collectors in Moscow over the
past week. Two people died and one was wounded during an assault near the
Moskva tradecentre on December 16. The criminals took two bags of cash
and escaped in a car.
Such crimes are nothing new in Moscow, they've happened before. Most
of those crimes have been cleared up by now.

.Russia's main New Year fir tree arrives in Moscow Kremlin.

MOSCOW, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's main New Year fir tree
arrived in the Moscow Kremlin on Saturday. It entered the Kremlin through
the Spasskiye Gates that open only once in four years: that is on Russian
president's inauguration day.
The fir tree is 28 meters high. It was planted in a forest near the
town of Mozhaisk about 103 years ago. The tree was cut down on December
18. A trailer driven by Father Frosts carried the tree to Moscow. The Fir
Tree has a certificate that it was grown up in an ecologically clean
forest in favorable weather conditions with love and care.
On Sunday, Russia's main New Year Fir Tree will be mounted on a
concrete pedestal on the Kremlin's Cathedral Square. It will take several
days to decorate the fir tree. By December 22 it will be decorated with
about 2,000 toys: balls, silver bells, knots of ribbons and a garland
painted in the colors of the Russian national flag.
A tradition to install trees on the Kremlin's Cathedral Square was
revived by President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. No fir trees were put on the
Cathedral Square from 2001 to 2004 because of bitter frosts.
Russia's main fir tree has been brought from the Moscow region for the
third consecutive year. It was a tradition under Tsar Peter the First to
bring fir trees to Moscow from the nearby forests.
In 2005 and 2006 the fir trees were delivered from Veliky Ustyug, the
home town of Russian Father Frost.

.

.Buryatia takes major step to decrease Baikal's pollution.

ULAN-UDE, Buryatia, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - New purification systems
have begun operation in the village of Kabansk, a major administrative
centre in Buryatia, on Saturday. The village is located in Baikal's
central ecological zone, 25 kilometers away from the lake, on the bank of
its biggest tributary - the Selenga River.
All village sewage waters now undergo multistage treatment.
Ten sewage-pumping stations daily carry 600 cubic meters of sewage
water on pipelines to the main sewage purification station where the
polluted water undergoes mechanical and biological treatment.
Previously, trucks used to collect sewage from houses in Kabansk. They
dumped it in the bottomland of the Selenga five or six kilometers away
from Baikal.
The Kabansk region of Buryatia is famous for it popular beach resorts
on the bank of the Baikal. In summer months the water there is as warm as
in the Black Sea. A special tourist zone, the Baikal Harbour, is being
created slightly to the north from Kabansk.
"Baikal's warm coast is an important link in the general plans to
develop tourism on the lake. Therefore, preserving its ecology is very
important, " Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, the president of Buryatia, said at the
opening ceremony. He added that the construction of the water purification
facilities and the pipelines had cost 155 million roubles of which 100
million roubles had come from the federal budget under a program aimed at
the economic and social development of the Far East and the Trans-Baikal
region.

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