Vice Governor Attacked
ST. PETERSBURG (AP) -- Vice St. Petersburg Governor Anatoly Kagan was hospitalized in intensive care Wednesday after being attacked outside his apartment building, the hospital said.
Kagan, who as head of St. Petersburg's health committee was embroiled in a controversial medical deal years ago, was beaten Tuesday night by unidentified attackers. Interfax said Kagan's skull was cracked in the attack.
Kristan Director Killed
ST. PETERSBURG (AP) -- Igor Novik, director of leading furniture factory Kristan, was killed overnight near his St. Petersburg home by unknown gunmen, Interfax reported Wednesday.
Interfax said Novik had recently approached gubernatorial candidate Vadim Gustov to work as his aide. However, authorities did not believe that was connected in any way to the killing.
Chemical Spill Probed
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Natural Resources Ministry team prepared Wednesday to head out to the site of a chemical spill off the coast of a Russian island in the Bering Sea, officials said.
The team was waiting for the weather to improve before departing from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, said Boris Kornev of the ministry.
A 20-ton container of chemicals used for the production of plastics and owned by Dupont washed up on Bering Island in July. The container was one of three such containers that Dupont lost at sea in March, Interfax reported. The container of tetraethylene glycol has begun to leak.
Rain Closes Metro
MOSCOW (MT) -- Heavy rainfall caused flooding on the Fili metro line and snarled traffic on main streets Wednesday, news agencies reported.
The Fili line was closed for more than an hour as workers pumped out water. Authorities expressed concern that rain forecast for the rest of the week might pose a danger to the metro system.
Journalist Beaten
KIEV (AP) -- Attackers severely beat a reporter in eastern Ukraine in the latest of a series of assaults against journalists, his colleagues said Wednesday.
Eduard Malynovskyi, 24, a journalist for the Ostriv Internet news site who also worked for U.S.-funded Hromadskiy Radio (Public Radio), was beaten by several unidentified men late Tuesday after he left a cafe in Donetsk.
Sodomy Conviction
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) -- An Uzbek journalist was convicted Wednesday at a closed trial in Tashkent on sodomy charges that rights groups say were politically motivated.
A Tashkent district court found Ruslan Sharipov, 25, guilty of having homosexual sex, having sex with minors and running a brothel and sentenced him to 5 1/2 years in jail, said Human Rights Watch researcher in Uzbekistan Matilda Bogner.
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