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News summary for December 27

All the headlines from the day's news

MOSCOW — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a federal law on addendums to the budget and several norms of the Russian Federation on use of oil revenues, the Kremlin’s site reports.

The State Duma approved the law on December 14, 2012, and the Federation Council passed it on December 19, 2012.

The law regulates use of additional oil revenues of the federal budget and use of the Reserve Fund and of the Fund of National Wellbeing.

The law states that additional oil revenues go to the Reserve Fund until it reaches the stated amount, which is s4even percent of the DGP for a current financial year.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted for ratification in the State Duma an agreement between the governments of Russia and Italy over the railway transit of weapons, ammunition, military hardware, military property and military staff through the territory of Russia, because the Italian armed forces are involved in the international efforts for the stabilization and restoration of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the Kremlin website reported on Thursday. The agreement was signed in Sochi on December 3, 2010.

The agreement is seeking to lay an international legal basis to grant the right to Russia over the UN Security Council resolutions to make the railway transit through its territory of non-airlifted cargoes of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, as well as servicemen and civilian staff of the Italian armed forces for their participation in the operations to stabilize and restore Afghanistan.

The agreement outlines the procedure of the foresaid railway transit, the transit procedure of dangerous cargoes, the security procedure of military cargoes or dangerous cargoes and staff in the transit.

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin approved changes to the law on the Central Bank, the Kremlin reported on Thursday.

The State Duma adopted the law on December 11, and on December 19 the Federation Council passed the law.

The law allows the Russian Central Bank to open and have rouble correspondent accounts of foreign central /national/ banks

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s government has taken final shape, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

“The first phase of establishing a complicated system – and the government is certainly a complicated system – has been accomplished successfully. A workable, business-minded and professional team has been formed, for which the head of government largely takes the credit,” Putin said at an on-going meeting with the members of the Cabinet of Ministers.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law introducing the amendments in the Aviation Code of the Russian Federation, which the State Duma approved on December 12 and the Federation Council approved it on December 19, the Kremlin website said in a statement on Thursday.

The federal law was drafted to fulfil the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization to implement the state program for the flight safety of civilian airplanes.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the Russian government to seek for the fulfilment of the presidential election pledges.

“Certainly, we should aim at all of us together to work on the fulfilment of the presidential election pledges,” Vladimir Putin said, adding, “It cannot be so that the government works on its own, the pledges given to the country are working themselves.”

“This does not mean that the government cannot have its ideas, its own perceptions on the development in different spheres during its work. Under the Constitution our government is a supreme body of executive authorities with all circumstances stemming from this, but one thing should not shade out another thing,” Putin stated.

 

MOSCOW — The Reserve Fund’s 100 billion roubles may be used for priority projects, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin told the government on Thursday.

“To avoid any misunderstanding, what I mentioned recently in the Address is that we may unseal the Reserve Fund slightly earlier – 100 billion may be used for investment projects,” he said.

“This is not breaching the budget rule, we have agreed on this with the finance ministry, and the actions are agreed, so we shall be doing it only after settlement of certain formalities.”

The president said that by the yearend the aggregated reserves made over nine percent of the GDP.

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin demanded from governors to pay personal attention to development of investment projects in their regions, as beginning from January of 2013 the new Standard for regional investment climate would become basic for Russia’s all regions.

Putin told the meeting of the State Council on Thursday that quite often investors coming to regions face the officials’ reluctance.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that he will sign the anti-Magnitsky law. “I am ready to sign not only (anti-Magnitsky) law, but also a presidential decree to change the procedure for the support of underage orphans, children, who were left without parental care and children, who got in trouble in their life,” the president said at a meeting of the Russian State Council on Thursday.

 

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed to name a large-scale project for the development and unification of the gas transportation infrastructure in West Siberia and the Far East as Sily Sibiri (Forces of Siberia).

 

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has called to take comprehensive measures so as to improve conditions for adoptions within Russia. Apart from additional finance and development of programs for children's adaptation, it is necessary to look into procedures, including juridical procedures, for adoptions; people should be encouraged to adopt children, and not only by money offer because it is generally known to what atrocities this might lead; we need programs for modernization of children's establishments which we could carry out in regions of the Russian Federation, Medvedev declared at a session of the State Council on Thursday.

 

MOSCOW — The tasks, which are set for the Russian government, are the most sweeping for the last 12 years, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s government on Thursday.

“It should be acknowledged that this is the most sweeping task, which the president had formulated for the government for the last 12 years. And all of us should make our contribution in the settlement of the relevant tasks, which were set in the presidential decrees and in those state programs, which we are taking with you,” the prime minister said in an address to his colleagues in the government.

 

MOSCOW — The government of the Russian Federation will allocate 5,340 million roubles in support of cinematography in 2013. A respective decision has been signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a government press service official said.

"The document sets out rules for the granting of subsidies from the budget to support cinematography. A sum of 5,340 million roubles is earmarked in the 2013 Federal budget for this purpose," the official pointed out.

 

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed an instruction to refer amendments to the Law on the Protection of Competition to the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament.

The Amendments exclude the notification-based control by the anti-monopoly body over a number of economic concentration deals /actions/, the RF government press service announced on Thursday.

 

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has endorsed a State Programme for "The Development of the Aviation Industry in the 2013–2015 Period", the RF government press service reported.

It is planned that Russia will retain its positions among the three leaders of the world's aircraft makers. The aviation industry is one of the country's key sectors, Medvedev pointed out.

 

MOSCOW — The Russian government has adopted a program of the development of the space industry until the year 2020. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved the program on Thursday after he made sure that no objections to the program had been voiced.

 

MOSCOW — Russia will allocate to 2020 for development of the space sector 2.1 trillion roubles.

“The total amount of the financing is very big – two trillion and 100 billion roubles, including off-budget sources,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the government on Thursday.

The prime minister said that implementation of the programme should provide effective functioning of the sector, the country’s security and would allow Russia’s participation in international projects to develop the space.

 

MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that the efficient spending of budget funds for the state defence order will make it possible to reequip the Russian troops in 2013–2015. Medvedev has made a statement to this effect at a governmental meeting on Thursday.

He noted that at its Thursday meeting the Russian Cabinet will debate a draft state defence order for 2013-2015.

 

MOSCOW — A common information space within the Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) might be formed by the summer of 2013. By that period, a common news television channel analogous to Euronews is to be established, chairman of the CIS committee of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, Leonid Slutsky, said on Wednesday at a meeting with ambassador from CIS countries.

According to Slutsky, media structures of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine are ready to establish such a channel.

 

MOSCOW — Russia calls to settle economic problems with Georgia calmly and without confrontation, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexander Lukashevich declared on Thursday in reply to a question if the Georgian wine and mineral water Borzhomi would be available in Russian shops.

 

MOSCOW — Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onischenko might meet representatives of the Georgian business to in the second decade of February to discuss the problem of the resumption of deliveries of the Georgian wine and Borzhomi mineral water to Russia, Onischenko told a press conference on Thursday.

 

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s protest movement is decreasing, and its future depends on actions from the power, Russian leading political scientists told a news conference at Itar-Tass, which was devoted to research of the Public Opinion Fund /FOM/.

 

MOSCOW — Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves climbed by 3.2 billion dollars (or by 0.61 percent) from 528.8 billion dollars to 532 billion dollars as of December 14-21, 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.

 

KAZAN — The world’s 99 countries have applied for participation in Kazan’s Universiade-2013, Deputy Director General of Kazan-2013 Igor Sivov said on Thursday.

The biggest national team will arrive from the US – 600 athletes. Other big teams include China, Japan, Poland, and the UK. Russia, as the organiser, will participate in all kinds of sports, and will present about 995 athletes. Russia’s delegation will make about 1,400 people.

 

KIEV — The idea of forming an integral state of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus is shared by 41 percent of Ukrainians, as follows from an opinion poll published by the group Rating.

The idea is rejected by 44 percent of those questioned while 15 percent remain undecided.

According to sociologists, the idea of forming one state with Russia enjoys the greatest support from the senior generation (53 percent), while among youth it is welcomed by 32 percent. The initiative has the most stable support in the South (64 percent), the Donets coal basin (57 percent) and in the East (54 percent). In the meantime, more than half of people in central and northern Ukraine and over 80 percent of people in western Ukraine dislike the possibility of one state.

 

KIEV — For granting the Russian language the status of a state language are 41 percent of Ukrainians, 51 are against it, and eight percent did not give an answer to the question, as shown in poll results organised by Rating Group.

The poll experts say that the ratio between supporters and opponents of the idea had remain about the same for the past two years.

 

KIEV — Only 19% of Ukrainians say they would like Ukraine to join NATO compared to almost two thirds of Ukraine’s population (61%) who come out against this initiative, according to results of a public opinion poll held by the Rating sociological group.

The idea of NATO membership was supported by 24%-26% of Ukrainians in 2010.

Ukraine gave up plans of joining NATO under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich. The Ukrainian parliament passed a law defining the country’s “non-bloc status” on July 1, 2010.

 

KIEV — Ukraine will be signing agreements with the Customs Union of the Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan (CU) only after it finds a coordinated decision on cooperation with that organization,” Nikolai Azarov, the Ukrainian prime minister, said on Thursday in an interview with the leading Ukrainian TV channels.

 

MINSK — The Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus have begun to deploy a second battery of modern Russian anti-aircraft missile systems Tor-M2.

A press service official of the Belarusian Ministry of Defence said Thursday that the first components of a second battery of Tor-2M had arrived in the Republic. "The deliveries are carried out under a State armaments programme for the 2006-2015 period," the Ministry official pointed out.

The first battery of Tor-M2 arrived from the Russian Federation to Belarus in December last year and has been phased into service by the 120th anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Western Tactical Operations Command of the Air Force and Air Defence Troops.

 

MINSK — The population of Belarus shrank by 4,500 to 9.460 million in 2012 as against last year.

“As of December 1, 2012, Belarus’s population made up 9.460 million, down by 4,500 as against the same period of last year,” the republic’s national statistics committee Belstat told Itar-Tass on Thursday.

In January-November 105,736 births (up by 5,781 as against the same period of last year) and 115,446 deaths (down by 9,043) have been registered in Belarus.

“As a result, the depopulation rate reached 9,710,” the statistics committee said.

The number of divorces grows, while the number of marriages declines. This year 1,000 marriages account for 492 divorces. Over the same period of last year there were 419 divorces.

According to Belarus’s Health Ministry, the average life expectancy exceeds 70 years (for men – 64.8 years and for women – 76.6 years).

 

CHISINAU — Moldovan Prime Minister Vlad Filat told journalists on Thursday that Moldova didn’t link the opening of a Russian consulate in the unrecognized Dniester Republic to negotiations on the Dniester settlement.