Museum of a name of Pushkin in Moscow

(Adds details, background in paras 3-9)...

(Adds details, background in paras 3-9) MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow District Military Court has upheld an arrest warrant for an Audit Chamber employee who was earlier detained on suspicion of receiving a 1 million euro ($1.4 million) bribe. The court rejected an appeal from Yury Gaidukov"s lawyers, who claimed his arrest was unlawful. Lawyer Vladimir Samokhin told journalists he plans to appeal to a higher court. Earlier reports said that Gaidukov was an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) assigned to the Audit Chamber. However, the FSB denied that Gaidukov was its employee. Gaidukov is charged with receiving a bribe during an audit of the power and engineering company, Energomash. However, another lawyer, Igor Pastukhov, said the criminal case was "instigated to avoid accusations of violations uncovered during the audit." The head of Russia"s Space Agency, Anatoly Perminov, denied that Energomash management was involved in bribing an Audit Chamber representative. Lyudmila Aivar, the lawyer of another defendant in the case, said the Audit Chamber had discovered violations in Energomash"s business activities that could have led to the company"s management facing criminal proceedings. "After that, the management turned to a large legal company, headed by my client, for consultations on settling the situation, that is, how to eradicate the violations," she said, adding that her client, now in a pre-trial detention center, was paid for the legal assistance he rendered Energomash.

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vlad Grinkevich) - The Russian currency is losing ground: in today's trading on the MICEX (Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange) the dollar cost over 28 rubles for the first time since the spring of 2006.

MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Finnish...

MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) - The Finnish owner of a cargo ship, crewed by Russians, that went missing off Portugal"s Atlantic coast on August 1 has asked Russia to assist in tracing the vessel, which may have been hijacked. "The Solchart company and me personally are counting, above all, on Russia"s assistance in the search for the missing vessel and its crew," Viktor Matveyev, the company"s executive director, said. The dry cargo vessel, the Arctic Sea, was due to arrive at the Algerian port of Bejaia on August 4. According to crew members, on July 24, masked men claiming to be police stopped the Arctic Sea in the Baltic Sea and tied up the crew, after which they searched the vessel. The crew is reported to have said the men then left the ship after the 12-hour ordeal and the Arctic Sea resumed its voyage. The Times newspaper cited a Maritime and Coastguard Agency representative as saying "We thought we had spoken to a member of the crew but of course it could have been someone with a gun pointed at their head or a hijacker." Mark Clark said that the ship had last been seen by a Portuguese patrol vessel. "This is the last information we have on the ship. Where she is now no one knows," Clark said, adding "no one can recall a hijacked ship being taken through the [English] channel." According to media reports, the Arctic Sea, which flies the Maltese flag, had a crew of 13 sailors on board as of late March.