MOSCOW: Authorities in central Russia said on Sunday (Monday in Manila) they are offering food in exchange for alcohol after 34 people died from drinking bootleg liquor containing highly toxic methanol. The deaths are the latest in Russia from the consumption of a cheap alcohol substitute, a persistent problem in a country where 21 million people live below the poverty line. In the region of Orenburg, around 1,500 kilometers southeast of Moscow in the southern Urals, 67 people were laid low by the consumption of adulterated alcohol in the past week alone.
