RUSSIANS CELEBRATE LENIN'S BIRTHDAY IN MOSCOW

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Aug. 16 (UPI) -- Nepal's newly elected prime minister will take his oath of office Monday, political leaders say.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- In Central Asia the United States has quietly and adroitly developed a program that will earn America more profound gratitude from locals than any number of bilateral military operations and lectures on human rights.The USAID is reporting that, as part of a USAID project, representatives of Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek energy concerns met July 30 in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, to discuss a regional model for electrical power transmission.

Oil wresting champ takes second title ... Man sues over mistaken identity ... Stalin, last czar nearly tied in fame poll ... Suspect claims he was checking security ... Watercooler stories from UPI.

MOSCOW, July 15 (UPI) -- Josef Stalin and Czar Nicholas II are running neck-and-neck in an online Russian poll to determine the country's most significant historical figure.

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- On June 12, 1,000 workers employed by the Caspian Shipyard Co. Ltd. in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, went on strike over poor wages and discrimination against Azeri laborers. The workers ceased their action the next day after giving CSC management a week to address their grievances before returning to industrial action. The action has ominous historical precedents.

WASHINGTON, June 5 (UPI) -- The global energy market nervously contemplates flat production and rising prices. Kazakhstan's Kashagan Caspian Sea offshore field is the largest find of the last 30 years; after years of cost overruns and legal controversy, the project is slated to begin production in 2011 and will provide Kazakhstan with its largest single source of hard currency when fully operational.

UPI Almanac for Wednesday, May 7, 2008.

ULYANOVSK, Russia, March 20 (UPI) -- Top officials of Russia's city of Ulyanovsk are going back to school to learn English to help international business relations.

UPI Almanac for Monday, Jan. 21, 2008.

YEKATERINBURG, Russia, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The mystery of what occurred to Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family nearly nine decades ago may have been solved by amateur investigators.