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05/25/2005:
"Putin slams power monopoly after big Moscow outage"
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after a big power outage that President Vladimir Putin blamed on the state-owned electricity monopoly headed by a liberal politician viewed with suspicion by the Kremlin.The outage, caused by a fire in a substation, shut the stock exchange, crippled transport and threatened mobile phone links in the sweltering Russian capital.
Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said the breakdown was caused by a fire and explosion overnight at an electricity substation. There was no evidence of a terrorist attack, he said.
But Putin, who delayed a provincial trip because of the crisis, pointed the finger at the management of Unified Energy System whose chief executive is Anatoly Chubais, one of the architects of the post-Soviet market revolution whose liberal views sit uneasily with Kremlin hard-liners.
Maybe it's just a little surprise to celebrate the new pipeline--a foretaste of things to come form the 'architects of the post-Soviet market revolution' who shrunk the Russian economy by over 40%.
Full: reuters.myway.com
