1.   A Senate committee approved legislation Thursday to give state prosecutors more weapons to combat illegal interstate alcohol sales.

2.   Border guard officials also argued the location was more convenient for blocking illegal alcohol traffic from Georgia to Russia.

3.   Four Britons face prison terms and a lashings in Saudi Arabia for illegal alcohol trading, the British Foreign Office said Friday.

4.   Illegal alcohol imports often come to Russia via Ukraine and Belarus, officials said.

5.   In a dispatch monitored in Mexico City, Prensa Latina said authorities in eastern province of Santiago arrested a group of people who were manufacturing the illegal alcohol.

6.   In neighboring Russia, the government has launched a crackdown on illegal alcohol, which remains widely available in many of the former Soviet republics.

7.   Local authorities believed that Vladimir Mironov was killed because of his efforts to tighten control over illegal alcohol sales in the republic of Karelia, ITAR-Tass said.

8.   President Boris Yeltsin has repeatedly promised to crack down on illegal alcohol imports and production.

9.   Primakov acknowledged that, saying that ethyl alcohol used to produce spirits is still entering the country despite the ban on its imports, and illegal alcohol sales continue.

10.   Russia will send more customs officials officials to Ukraine to guard against illegal alcohol imports, Chubais added.