Antimonopoly official comments on inquiries into Gazprom operations.

WASHINGTON, November 11 (Itar-Tass) - Antimonopoly inquiries into
operations of the Russian natural gas producer Gazprom show that there are
no inapprochable companies in Russia, Igor Artemyev, the director of the
Federal Antimonopoly Service /FAS/ told Itar-Tass in Washington Tuesday.

He is making a working visit to the U.S.
In the course of his meetings here he held talks with officials from
the antitrust division of the Department of Justice and Assistant Attorney
General for Antitrust, Christine A. Varney, as well as the Chairman of the
Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz.
Upon the end of the talks, the sides signed a memorandum of
understanding.
"The FAS is conducting two large inquiries into Gazprom's operations,"
Artemyev said. "The cases were instituted on evidence of encroachment on
antimonopoly legislation by putting up obstacles to independent supplies
who sought access to the market of natural gas."
As Itar-Tass asked him when the FAS plans to complete the inquiries,
Artemyev said it depends on how much progress on them is made in the
future.
"If they throw sand in our wheels and withhold all the information -
and that's exactly what's happening now - the inquiry will take several
months," he said. "Just recall Gazprom's sales. The penalty will be huge,
too. Bigger than the penalties we issue to oil companies."
He indicated that the last penalty imposed on the oil corporation
LUKOIL stood at around 6.5 billion rubles, or $ 210 million.
Artemyev made a reservation, though, saying that the final decisions
on Gazprom will be taken by court.
"I just said we don't have any inapproachable personalities anymore,"
he said. "We open cases against Gazprom or Rosneft /Russia's major oil
company/ like we do against anyone else."
In the first quarter of this year, the companies TNK-BP Holding
Company, Gazprom Neft and Rosneft were fined for a total fine of 14
billion rubles.

.S Korea asks Russia to give it 3 Amur tiger cubs as present.

SEOUL, November 11 (Itar-Tass) - South Korea has asked Russia to hand
over three Amur tiger cubs as a present.
Amur tigers used to populate the Korean Peninsula but they have
completely disappeared by now in its southern parts.
According to Korean papers, the authorities made this request at a
regular session of the bilateral environmental committee at the end of
October. The committee meets biennially.
Newspapers in Seoul say the request was made for two male cubs and a
female cub, and the Environment Ministry here says it is ready to discuss
alll the practical issues immediately.
The young tigers from Russia will be placed to the Seoul zoo where
they will be supposed to diversify the gene pool of the Amur tigers
already there, writes the Korea Times.
According to the newspaper, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made
it clear in August that Russia was ready to donate the cubs.
Korean tigers have long been extinct but efforts are being made to
bring them in from foreign countries. All the newly arriving ,, species
remain in captivity.
Amur /alternative name Siberian/ tigers once roamed Western and
Central Asia, eastern Russia and Korea, but now their habitat is limited
to the Amur-Ussuri region in far eastern Siberia.
Russia designated the site as a national park for the protection of
Siberian tigers.
The Korea Times writes that poaching reduced the number of Amur tigers
to below a hundred animals by the 1940s, but their number has risen back
to around 1,000 to 500 in the wild and 421 in captivity.
-0-kle