CRIMINALS SEEN WANTING DUMA IMMUNITY.

Criminals are likelyto increase their representation in the next Duma in order totake advantage of the immunity from criminal prosecution thatDuma members now enjoy, Obshchaya gazeta (no. 34) reported.There are at least 12 criminal kingpins in the current Duma, andthere will be "several times more" in the next one,the paper said. But it complained that "the trade in a deputy’simmunity … is the most vulgar kind of parliamentary commerce.On August 23, Russian radio reported that the prosecutor’s officehad asked the Duma to lift the immunity of deputy Vyacheslav Marychevso that he could be tried for hooliganism.

Moscow Signs New Nuclear Accord with Tehran.