1. from FOXNews.com:
Russia's Vladimir Putin Given Rare Baby Tiger for 56th Birthday
MOSCOW — There's no doubt what Vladimir Putin's favorite birthday present is this year — a rare Ussuri tiger cub.
State television showed the Russian prime minister affectionately petting the two-month-old female cub on Friday. The tiger weighs only about 20 pounds and sleeps in a wicker basket at Putin's residence outside Moscow.
Putin says a good home will be found for the tiger, presumably in a zoo or wildlife preserve. He hasn't decided what to call her, but is leaning toward Mashenka or Milashka.
Putin refuses to say who gave him the cub for his 56th birthday, which was Tuesday.
The Ussuri tiger is also known as the Siberian, Amur or Manchurian tiger. Fewer than 400 are believed to survive in the wild.
Putin's Dog Gets Satellite-Guided Tracking Collar
Putin listened Friday as his deputy, Sergei Ivanov, briefed him on the progress of the Global Navigation Satellite System. Then footage broadcast on Russian TV showed them try a collar containing satellite-guided positioning equipment on the prime minister's black Labrador Koni.
Ivanov said that the equipment goes on a standby mode wh
en "the dog doesn't move, if it, say, lies down in a puddle."
Putin interrupted him jokingly: "My dog isn't a piglet, it doesn't lie in puddles."
"She wags her tail, she likes it," Putin said after watching Koni outside his collonaded residence on Moscow's western outskirts.
The navigation system, which goes by acronym GLONASS, was developed during the Soviet era as a response to the U.S. Global Positioning System, but it has been slow to take shape amid the post-Soviet economic meltdown.
The government had promised to make the system fully operational by the beginning of this year, but it was delayed by equipment flaws and other technical problems.
Ivanov told Putin that the system would have 21 satellites by the year's end -- enough to provide navigation services over the entire Russian territory.
Ivanov said it would be available worldwide by the end of 2009, for which it would need to have 24 satellites.
This all just leaves me wondering --- how do the black lab and the tiger cub get along?
1 comment:
in response to your question- like a witch and a pilgrim.
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