By Russell Working Russian officials are crying foul over a dispute in which a U.S. Coast Guard boarding team seized a fishing boat that allegedly strayed into America's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, but American officials are seeking prosecution of the vessel in an incident that created a tense standoff in the Bering Sea. A new strike season in Primorye started August 3 with a hunger strike by 16 unpaid workers at Vladivostok Power Station No. 2. Two days later they kept their director hostage for a few hours. 2 truckers bring cholera from China By Nonna Chernyakova Two truck drivers who drank infected water in the Chinese city of Dunnin were hospitalized this week after they came home with cholera, health officials reported August 2. A Japanese citizen and her Russian boyfriend disappeared from their apartment in Vladivostok last week.
Police suspect a murder.
Gas crisis enrages drivers By Nonna Chernyakova A line of about 100 cars blocked Partizansky Avenue in Vladivostok recently, and people impatiently looked at their watches, hoping to get 20 liters of gas before 5 p.m., when the gas station closes. If Russian society wants to be a true democracy, it must supervise a Federal Security Service that remains a vestige of the Soviet regime, said freed military journalist Grigory Pasko. Anatoly Medetsky Primorye Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko recently launched a libel suit against the chief of the regional Arbitration Court that decides on corporate lawsuits. PEN to speak out for jailed Chinese writers By Anatoly Medetsky Russian PEN may ask Chinese authorities to free several writers and reporters jailed for free speech, PEN leaders told a Vladivotok press conference July 27. Hard times push up crime rate By Anatoly Medetsky Crime significantly rose in Primorye in the first half of this year when compared to the same period last year, especially slayings, thefts, and drug dealing, police statistics show.