All news

News summary for November 22

Main news of the day

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin hopes that the government will soon approve new five roadmaps of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives.

“The roadmaps envision concrete decisions on optimising the procedure for registering property and new business and on improving the quality of state regulation as a whole. I hope that the ASI supervisory committee will consider the roadmaps, which will be promptly finalised and approved by the Russian government,” Putin said on Thursday.

At the same time, the president urged the participants in the session to rivet attention to “the initial stage of the work”. “It is not too difficult to register business. But it is much more complicated to organise the work on the initial stage,” the head of state stressed.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on the development of the OJSC Federal Hydro- Generating Company RusHydro, which involves its extra capitalisation by 50 billion roubles by means of allocations from the 2012 federal budget. “The money should be used for the development of the electrical energy industry of the Far East,” the RF head of the state said on Thursday at a meeting with Minister for the Russian Far East Development Viktor Ishayev and RusHydro head Yevgeny Dod. He named among the main facilities the thermal power plant (TPS) in the town of Sovetskaya Gavan, the Sakhalin GRES-2 state district power plant, the Yakutsk GRES-2 state district power plant and the Blagoveshchensk TPS.

 

MOSCOW - - Russian government has agreed to transfer 600 million shares of the oil industry giant OAO Rosneft, which belong to OAO Rosneftegaz, at a market price established by independent auditors to British Petroleum or to a legal entity affiliated with the latter and appointed to perform the role of a buyer, says a resolution signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev’s press secretary Natalya Timakova said Thursday that the 600 million shares transferred make up 5.66% of Rosneft’s registered capital.

 

MOSCOW — The Federation of Independent Trade Unions /FNPR/ supported the pension reform project, but made reservations, FNPR secretary Alexander Shershukov said after the meeting of the FNPR General Council on Wednesday.

"We believe a pension in the amount of 40 percent of salary should be paid for an employment record of 30 years, not 35, as the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection suggests," Shershukov said.

Also, the unions insist on pension deductions from the so-called self-employed citizens, such as lawyers or persons engaged in private entrepreneurship and labor migrants.

 

VLADIVOSTOK — Eastern Military District commander Admiral Konstantin Sidenko said Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu decided, at a conference at the Pacific Fleet headquarters, to transfer 382 military compounds into ownership of the Primorye Territory.

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s healthcare system modernisation program that was launched in 2011 will be extended to 2013, Alexei Levchenko, an aide to RF Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets told journalists on Thursday.

“It is planned to spend 42.5 billion roubles from the Federal Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund (FFOMS), the sum of co-financing with the budgets of RF regions will be determined in early 2013,” Levchenko specified.

 

MOSCOW — Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves tumbled by 0.5 billion dollars (or by 0.1 percent) from 522.7 billion dollars to 522.2 billion dollars as of November 9-16, the External and Public Relations Department of the Central Bank said on Thursday.

The level of gold and foreign exchange reserves totaled 498.649 billion dollars as at January 1.

 

MOSCOW — Every tenth Russian child lives in a problem family, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets told a meeting of the coordination council on the implementation of a national strategy of action in the interests of children.

“Some 12% of children in Russia live in problem families”, she said.

According to the senior government official about 80,000 children still abide in orphanages. Though a majority of the 600,000 orphans in Russia enjoys some kind of guardianship, such a considerable share of children being kept in orphanages, and very often in extremely unfavorable conditions, is a serious problem.

Golodets said that in 2011 some 93,000 children fell victim to criminals, 728 committed suicide and 944 died in road accidents.

 

ST.PETERSBURG — An agreement on the Collective Security Treaty Organisation Parliamentary Assembly (CSTO PA) will be adopted in the course of the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council on December 19, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said at a session of the CSTO PA Council, also attended by CSTO countries’ security councils secretaries on Thursday.

 

MOSCOW — The State Duma will approve a bill on fans in two months, Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Physical Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs Igor Ananskikh told a press conference here on Thursday.

 

MOSCOW — Russia is developing an unprecedented project for the removal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from Vietnam by air. Deputy head of the international projects department of the Federal Centre of Nuclear and Radiation Safety (FCNRS) Lyubov Yungerova made this statement at the international conference G8 Global Partnership: Assessment and Options for Future Programming in the Fields of Nuclear and Radiological Security.

The spent fuel assemblies (SFA) will be transported from nuclear power plants to the storage and processing in special planes. The Sosny research and production company from Dimitrovgrad (Ulyanovsk Region) already has rich experience in this kind of transportation, mainly on the Ilyushin IL-76 TD planes.

 

MOSCOW — Russia's Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is fixing a steady slowdown of the growth rates of Russian economy, the director of the Ministry's department for macroeconomic forecasting, Oleg Zasov said Thursday.

"Growth slowed down to 2.3% in October and the downshift continues continues for the firth month on end," he said. "A strengthening depressive impact of the farming sector is felt."

Another factor exerting impact is unsteady dynamics in the industrial sector, as well as a slowdown in retail trade and simply in people's earnings, Zasov said.

 

MOSCOW — Russia recognises Palestine as an independent state and upholds its application for upgrading the status in the U.N., Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.

“If the Palestinian leadership takes such political decision, this is their right. We recognise Palestine as an independent state and support its application,” Lukashevich said.

 

MINSK — Gazprom considers a possibility to increase Russian gas transit by 30 percent via Belarus, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said after a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday.

Gazprom will prepare a feasibility study to increase Russian gas transit via Belarus, Miller told journalists.

 

MINSK — Russia’s gas giant Gazprom will build its office center in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

 

TBILISI — Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said his visit to the United States scheduled for the end of November had been postponed.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Ivanishvili said the trip had been postponed “due to my intensive working schedule. The visit will take place in 2013”.

 

KIEV — Ukraine is holding talks with the World Trade Organization /WTO/ on a revision of terms for joining the organization, Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov said Thursday at a conference with members of the Ukrainian Federation of Employers.

 

KIEV — Vitaly Klichko, the leader of the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms (UDAR), on Thursday called for the resignation of Ukrainian government and the leadership of Ukraine’s National Bank.

“We demand the resignation of the government and the National Bank leadership,” Klichko, who’s accusing the cabinet of ministers of squandering government funds, told journalists.