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Bear Not a Necessity

MOSCOW -- A four-month-old bear-cub nearly became President Boris Yeltsin's newest companion as he toured the Russian Far East, Itar-Tass reported Wednesday. However, Yeltsin decided at the last moment not to accept the gift from his hosts at the Blagoveshchensky Shipbuilding Factory on the Chinese border. Local hunters captured three four-month-old bear cubs after accidentally killing their mother and kept them in a cage at the factory. When Yeltsin lingered near the cage, his hosts decided to give him a small brown cub, a traditional gift to old Russian tsars. But as his guards began to load the cage into his car Yeltsin decided to refuse his gift, Itar-Tass reported.

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