Troops sent into Russian town as miners' strike continues

Russian interior ministry troops have been sent into the town of Anzhero-Sudzhensk in the Siberian Kemerovo Region to deal with potential civil unrest caused by a continuing miners' strike, Radio Russia reported on Sunday.

It said there were reports that accommodation had been prepared for more than 1,000 OMON special purpose militia reinforcements.

"The authorities are trying to prepare for any eventuality in connection with the continued strike by the miners," the radio said.

Several hundred miners were still on strike, the report said, despite the fact that the governor of Kemerovo Region, Aman Tuleyev, had secured 13 billion roubles from the Russian Fuel and Energy Ministry to pay the miners.

It said another 800 miners expecting to be laid off were planning to join the strike.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.