MOSCOW, December 23 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow...

MOSCOW, December 23 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow police officially rejected media reports on Tuesday that two violinists from a famed Russian orchestra had been attacked by racists, a police spokesman said. A member of the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra, Denis Shulgin, was hospitalized with a fractured skull and brain concussion after an attack in the Russian capital on Monday. Attackers stole his valuable violin. In a separate incident on Sunday, his colleague Georgy Tsai, an ethnic Korean, was stabbed in the stomach and suffered numerous hand injuries. His bag was stolen during the attack, which occurred near his home. Both men are reported to be in a stable condition. Police are investigating whether the attacks were linked. After the first incident, media said the violinist had been a victim of a race-hate attack. However, the police spokesman Viktor Biryukov dismissed the reports saying: "We officially deny this information as there no grounds for such allegations." Criminal cases into assault and robbery have been opened, he said. Racially motivated crimes have become common in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Attacks by gangs of youths on foreigners and people with non-Slavic features are a routine occurrence in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the city of Voronezh, which hosts many foreign university students. Last week, the Moscow City Court sentenced seven young men, convicted of 20 race-hate murders and 12 other attacks, to between six and 20 years in prison. The gang carried out a series of attacks between August 2006 and October 2007 targeted at foreigners and non-Slavic migrants. The suspects filmed some of the attacks and posted them on the Internet.

Several hundred people were safely evacuated...

Several hundred people were safely evacuated early on Saturday from a subway train in eastern Moscow after smoke appeared in the tunnel, a spokesman for the Russian capital"s emergency service said.

MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian...

MOSCOW, July 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to regulate the production and turnover of ethyl alcohol and alcoholic products, the presidential press service said Friday. The State Duma, parliament"s lower house, adopted the law on July 8 and the Federation Council, parliament"s upper house, adopted it on July 13. The law aims to improve the legal regulation of this area of the economy, strengthen state control and protect consumers from black-market products. The law expands the authorities of the federal bodies of state power. Under the law, they will introduce a unified state automated system to calculate the volumes of produced and sold ethyl alcohol and alcoholic products. If there is no information in the system about certain products, the products will be confiscated. Authorities will also be charged with defining the procedure to license alcohol retail sales and ensuring that organizations observe license rules. The law states that state enterprises and organizations with paid-in equity capital worth no less than 10 million rubles, or $349,650, can produce ethyl alcohol, while state enterprises and organizations with paid-in equity capital worth no less than 50 million rubles, or $1.75 million, can produce vodka. Putin spoke in Kaliningrad on July 2 at a State Council session. He criticized the current alcohol market regulation system and advocated a state monopoly on alcohol.