vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #160 / Business / Reading article...

Truck scales open on Chinese border crossings

Truck weight checkup services will go into operation at Russian-Chinese border crossings Poltavka, Tury Rog and Pogranichny from Feb. 2 to prevent excess lading of trucks by both Russian and Chinese truckers. Later, Primorye’s domestic roads will be equipped with similar services too. Offenders of weight limits will be fined for damage to roads according to a governor’s decree.

Sakhalinsk e-mail hacker found guilty, fined

Sakhalinsk City Court found guilty a computer hacker in Russia’s first hacking case recently. The defendant was given a suspended sentence for three years of prison with a two-year probation period and was fined 17,000 new rubles. Moreover, the hacker will pay 1,770 rubles to cover damages of a communications company. The Sakhalin branch of the FSB said the commerce and entrepreneurship student created a program to hack into e-mail boxes of Sakhmail subscribers and copy business and confidential information. However, he claimed he didn’t sell the data, but acted out of pure love of the technical side of hacking. The investigation had been going on since last May.

Drug arrests declined in 1997 from 275 to 207

Far Eastern Customs say 1997 saw only 207 attempts of drug smuggling as compared with 275 in 1996. However, the weight of contraband went up to 230 kilograms last year from 169 in 1996. Also, Primorye custom houses filed 141 criminal cases about different customs breeches last year.

Vladivostok daily named best on the Internet

The Moscow computer magazine Kompyuter i Zhizn named the Vladivostok online the best Russian language edition on the Internet. The daily Vladivostok topped the chart with such categories as archive accessability and volume, archive search by key word, design, speed and upgrade rate. The national publishing giant Komsomolskaya Pravda was rated the ninth on the list. The Vladivostok, which publishes the Vladivostok News, can be found at http://www.vladnews.ru , or can be accessed from the Vladivostok News, http://vn.vladnews.ru

Cops’ phones cut off

Nakhodka telephone company cut the city’s police numbers off Jan. 21 for outstanding debts of 550,000 new rubles as of mid January. Callers can use only the 02 urgent line or the duty officer’s number. Police says no phone communications paralyses investigations and search, and creates trouble in investigations and operations. Phone communications for police are funded from the federal budget.

Hungry Koreans sent home from Khasan

Russian border guards in Khasansky County detained a North Korean married couple that openly came along the tracks. The spouses said severe hunger made them leave the homeland. The couple was promptly fed and turned over to the Korean side.

Something’s wrong with this 50-ruble note

Defective 50-ruble bills hit Vladivostok recently. The rejects have the watermark and the foil strip on the right instead of the left. Apparently a money paper sheet was fed the wrong side first at the printing plant. Shops and companies accept the bills and turn them over to banks for destroying.

Mayor moves car lot

Mayor Cherepkov will relocate the city’s biggest used car market from the Neibuta Street area to Chukotskaya St. on Churkin by the Naval Cemetery. The new site for the market will take up a portion of a construction company’s area and use some of its facilities. The company’s production has been down to 10 per cent of its rated capacity for a while and the move will keep its workers employed. Also the new site will hold as many as 1,200 cars at a time and will offer more conveniences.

Vladivostok calls to be billed by the minute

Vladivostok’s telephone lines company is going to shift to a new billing system starting March. It will charge 24 rubles a month plus 2.5 kopecks per every minute of your conversations within a month. Given that average time spent talking on the phone is 240 minutes per month, the minute-based charge will add 6 more rubles to the bill, the company reported. Emergency, ambulance, fire, police, information desk calls and calls to life support services of the city hall, Dalenergo, water and sewage company, heat pipeline company, sanitary and epidemiological station are not chargeable. Incoming and trunk calls are not chargeable either. From January until April clients will receive bills saying how many minutes they used in the previous month to get an idea of the extra amount to pay.