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According to the Russian Federal Forest Agency (Rosleskhoz), illegal logging in seven regions within the Russian Federation (Komi Republic, Arkhangelsk and Irkutsk oblasts, and Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorsky, and Khabarovsk regions) cost the government 9 billion rubles in the first half of 2006.
The Forest Agency recorded 6,930 incidents of illegal logging, which together comprised 1.2 million cubic meters of timber. The total area of forest in these regions is 289 million hectares, which is about 25% of Russia's forested land (1.2 billion hectares). Extrapolating the losses suffered by Rosleskhoz in these regions to the country's entire timber reserves, the government loses 72 billion rubles ($2.7 billion) every year, and the volume of timber lost to illegal logging is 9.6 million cubic meters (6.4 million trees). In order to comprehend the magnitude of these losses, let us imagine that every Russian citizen undertakes to compensate for them by cutting back on pages wasted while printing. Remembering the Soviet-era slogan that "20 kilograms of wasted paper would have been one tree saved," we can calculate that compensation for illegal logging activities would require the Russian population to save 128,000 tons of paper per year. Each person, on average, would thus be required to save 895 grams of paper products per year. This is the equivalent of four rolls of single-ply toilet paper (at an average of 227 grams per roll), which equals the average amount used by one person in three months.
Moscow has taken 41st place in a list of the world's most expensive cities compiled by the Swiss bank UBS. In the list of 71 cities, Moscow ranks between Taiwan and Sao Paulo.
All repair work in Beslan will be completed in 2007, according to Russian Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref.
222 construction workers were hospitalized in Moscow and the Moscow area last week with symptoms of food poisoning.
Forty armed light rockets were discovered by Russian police officers in a forested area between the villages of Yandari and Surkhakhi in the Narzan region of Ingushetia. The rockets were arranged with 200 meters between each of them.
The state prosecutor has requested a sentence of 18 years in prison for a man charged with the murder of a student from Peru. Enrique Arturo Angeles Hurtado bled to death when he and two other foreign students were attacked in Voronezh on October 6, 2005.
General Vladimir Popovkin, commander of Russia's cosmonauts, has announced that 4,224 officers will be removed from duty at the Baikonur cosmodrome. Of these, 707 will be transferred to new duty stations, while 3,517 will be transferred to the reserves.
The number of prisoners permitted to be housed at a prison in Amur, in the Khabarovsk region, will soon be doubled. According to the Khabarovsk regional government press service, the water supplied to the municipal water system by Khabarovsk "Vodokanal" accords with sanitary norms and regulations.
Two criminal groups involved in the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit Russian rubles and American dollars were dissolved by policemen last week in Dagestan and the Krasnodar region.
Russia's national football team is in 33rd place in FIFA's ratings. The trio of leaders are the national teams from Brazil, Italy, and Argentina.
Pavel Chernikov
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