National Putin Addresses Huge Rally in Moscow By Kirill Bessonov For the first time in his political career, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a large group of supporters in Moscow. His speech was punctuated with harsh remarks for Russia's opponents who seek to drag the country back to the turmoil of the nineties. Putin also blasted foreign governments for meddling in Russia's internal affairs.

News Kerch Strait Storm Damage Estimated at $265 Million MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Damage caused by the November 11 storm in the Kerch Strait which links the Black and Azov seas is estimated at $265 million, Russia's natural resources minister said, citing the environmental regulator.

News Deputy Finance Minister Held in Corruption Probe By Anna Arutunyan A high-profile corruption case is underway with the arrest of a deputy finance minister whom authorities suspect of trying to embezzle some $43 million from the state budget. Sergei Storchak, a deputy to Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, is in custody. Prosecutors were careful about their allegations of suspected embezzlement, but amid media speculation the Finance Ministry stood behind Storchak, whose longtime involvement in international financial relations put him at the helm of operations to pay off Soviet-era debt.

News In Brief - Dagestan Candidate Wounded in Shooting Dagestan Candidate Wounded in Shooting, Russia: Kosovo Election Worsens Situation, Litvinenko Murder Suspect Settles $800,000 Lawsuit, Prodi Due in Moscow for Pipeline Talks

News OSCE Monitors Refuse to Attend Russian Elections By Kirill Bessonov Monitors from the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) have refused to come to Russian parliamentary elections that are due on December 2.

News Crime Briefs - Spanish TV Show Faces Criticism after Russian Woman's Fatal Stabbing Spanish TV Show Faces Criticism after Russian Woman's Fatal Stabbing, Moscow Police Convicted of Extortion, Student Sentenced for Posting Racist Execution Video on Web

Local TV Tower Beckons Thrill Seekers and Tourists By Theodore Merz The Ostankino TV Tower, the tallest structure in Moscow, looks set to become one of the city's top attractions for tourists and thrill-seekers.

Local High-Rises Set to Dot Moscow's Growing Skyline By Sergei Dmitriyev Moscow authorities plan to build up to 200 high-rise tower blocks of at least 30 storeys in 60 different sites in the capital's outskirts by 2015, Vladimir Resin, the first deputy mayor of Moscow and the head of the city's construction division, said at the opening ceremony of an international investment forum Friday.

Local From Russia with... Lingerie By Daria Chernyshova The Russians have cultivated their own taste and seem ready to compete with the more modest Europeans in this exciting market sector. Russian lingerie is a dominant force both home and away so - better watch out.

Local Declining Unemployment RIA Novosti - The number of unemployed people in Moscow has gone down by 45,200 in 2007, with 600 this November, the chairman of the state employment agency administration told RIA Novosti. Figures show that at the beginning of November the Moscow employment agency's records listed 24,300 unemployed people, reports the agency.

Local Cram Time as Student Housing Problem Worsens By Nathalie Cooper The Moscow City Duma's Youth Chamber stated its intention to improve the current housing situation in student hostels at a meeting last week. More and more students are being forced to seek alternative accommodation as student rooms go to outsiders, including drug dealers, migrant workers and prostitutes. Extreme measures, such as raiding university hostels, have been suggested to deal with the worsening situation.

Local Homeless in the City By Tom Washington Winter is a hard time in Moscow, streets freeze and those without protection from the elements do likewise. The street dogs die in droves and those on whom society has turned its back huddle for shelter in perekhody or wherever else they can find shelter. This is what faces Moscow's homeless population over the coming months and, when both bodily and moral resources are at their lowest ebb, hyperthermia starts to claim growing numbers of victims.

Local Prisoners Take to the Stage By Yekaterina Rozhayeva The wave of riots that recently swept through the country's prisons, penal colonies, and pretrial remand centers did not lead to the cancellation of a remarkable cultural event in the Russian capital - an art festival of juvenile delinquents, entitled "Amnesty of the Soul." The finale took place at the Moscow Youth Experimental Theater, directed by Vyacheslav Spesivtsev. MN's Yekaterina Rozhayeva reports.

Local Hitting Arbat's Literary Road By Phoebe Taplin Last week's walk explored Pushkin's childhood haunts in the countryside near Moscow. This week returns to the city where the famous writer was born and married. On the way, we will pass several other writers and pass some interesting buildings on the way.

National Warning: The Debt Man Cometh By Natalya Alyakrinskaya and Pyotr Kassin (photos) In the 1990s, debt collection in Russia was typically handled by thugs with baseball bats. Today, by comparison, delinquents are handled by professionals and in fairly civilized ways.