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TOPSHOT - Activists from the Russian branch of Greenpeace hold a banner, reading "Keep Baikal alive," during their protest in front of the Rostekhnadzor (Russian Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Monitoring) building in Moscow 01 February 2006. Russian official environmental experts are bracing for a showdown with state authorities over a planned oil pipeline to Asian markets that they warn could pollute the pristine Lake Baikal in Siberia. UNESCO, which classified Lake Baikal as a World Heritage site in 1996, said the pipeline "threatens the area" and has asked for explanations from the Russian government, said Mechtild Rssler, a senior official at the United Nations body's World Heritage Centre. AFP PHOTO / DENIS SINYAKOV (Photo by DENIS SINYAKOV / AFP) (Photo by DENIS SINYAKOV/AFP via Getty Images)