BEIJING — Russia and China must strengthen mutual political support and coordination in international and regional affairs, said a report posted on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The report gives details of talks between Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, held earlier on Tuesday. Most of the talks proceeded behind closed doors.
BEIJING — Russian-Chinese security cooperation will be successful under newly-appointed Chinese Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the secretary of the political legal committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Meng Jianzhu, said at a meeting with Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev at the state residence Diaoyutai on Tuesday. Patrushev began his visit to China on Tuesday.
KIEV — Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Timoshenko, sentenced to seven years in prison, has declared a personal civil disobedience action. The former prime minister said it in an open letter read out at a briefing by her defense lawyer, parliamentarian Sergei Vlasenko. Timoshenko said in the letter that from now on she refuses to speak to prosecutors and investigators. “From this day on I will not meet them a single time or give explanations,” the politician wrote.
MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved the strategy for the development of the Russian Customs Service until 2020, the press service of the Russian government reported on Tuesday. The strategy was drafted “to improve the activities of the customs services with due account of Russia’s transition to the innovative principle of economic development, the integration of the country in the world economy, the changes in the scale, nature and types of foreign economic activities.”
KIEV — The air company Aerosvit cancelled 17 flights, particularly eight arrivals and nine departures, on Tuesday. The corresponding report was posted on the website of the Kiev international airport Borispol. “We ask the passengers to take into account the fact of cancelled flights of the air carrier in advance. We note possible changes in the flight schedule of the air company in next few days. Meanwhile, the Borispol airport is ready to serve all flights of domestic and international air carriers according to the routine flight schedule,” the Borispol international airport said in a statement.
MOSCOW — Russia’s Aeroflot flagship carrier will carry all passengers who bought before January 4 tickets for codeshare flights with Ukrainian AeroSvit facing financial difficulties, Aeroflot Director General Vitaly Savelyev said on Tuesday. “We will carry all who bought tickets before January 4 inclusive for any date,” he wrote in his Twitter microblog in reply to a question by Echo of Moscow radio about the fate of the codeshare flights with the Ukrainian airlines from Moscow and back.
KIEV — Ukraine’s National JSC Naftogaz Ukrainy has transferred to Russia’s Gazprom gas giant about 618 million dollars for gas imported in December 2012, the company press service reported on Tuesday. It said the money was transferred on January 4. “National JSC Naftogaz Ukrainy monthly fulfils its gas payment commitments to Gazprom timely and in full,” company sources said. The price of gas for Ukraine in October-December of 2012 was about 430 dollars.
DUSHANBE — Tajikistan’s annual inflation rate last year was 6.4 percent, the lowest figure in the past three years, the National Bank of Tajikistan reported on Tuesday. “On the whole the situation with inflation in the republic in 2012 was stable, and its pace slowed down by 2.9 percent on the average as compared with previous years,” a bank official said. In 2010 inflation stood at 9.8 percent, while in 2011 – at 9.3 percent, he added.
MINSK — Belarus’s inflation last year made up 21.8 percent, according to the country’s National Statistics Committee. Food prices grew 21.1 percent, while non-food prices grew 10.3 percent, it said. As for food products, alcohol prices hiked by 62.3 percent. Wheat flour, bread and bakery products became up to 44 percent more expensive. Prices for butter, milk, dairy products, cheese, potatoes and tobacco also grew sizably in 2012.
MINSK – Orthodox Christians in Belarus on Monday marked Christmas, one of the most revered Christian holidays. Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk conducted a liturgy at the Minsk Cathedral of the Holy Spirit. In his Christmas address Metropolitan Filaret noted that the state and the church had established good relations with each other. "We develop cooperation communicating in the language of moral values. Today, it’s important to remember that Christianity is turned not only to a community of people but also to each separate individual,” Metropolitan Filaret went on to say.
MOSCOW - It’s Christmastide in Russia. Orthodox Christians will celebrate the arrival of Jesus Christ for the next 12 days. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill will conduct a service at the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on Tuesday. The liturgy will be devoted to the Holy Virgin and other earthly relatives of Jesus Christ.
BANGKOK — A release on bail from the Cambodian prison of businessman Sergei Polonsky and another two Russian citizens is possible only closer to late January, lawyer of the Russian citizens Virakbot Suong Khun said in an exclusive interview with Itar-Tass by phone from Sihanoukville on Tuesday.
BISHKEK — Three Uzbek citizens have got gunshot wounds in an incident, which broke out on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border. Uzbek representatives stated about the military incident at a meeting between the chiefs of the border services of the two countries and the heads of the local authorities, the public relations department of the Kyrgyz Border Service told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KAZAN — The Russian KAMAZ crew headed by Eduard Nikolayev came second at the third stage of the international motor race Dakar-2013, press attach· of the Russian team KAMAZ-Master Erik Khairullin told Itar-Tass from Peru on Tuesday. “Dutch racer Gerard de Rooy was the first to come to the finish again. Nikolayev’s truck was just one minute and 24 seconds behind that of de Rooy’s,” the press attach· said from the race route.
MOSCOW — The radio-technical units of the Russian Aerospace Defence Troops will put into service about 20 new radars of various modifications this year. “The radars Gamma-S, Nebo-U, Podlet-K and advanced all-altitude detectors will come into service,” spokesman for the Russian Aerospace Defence Troops Col. Alexei Zolotukhin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “The modernized radar systems Desna, Kasta and etc will enter service as well,” he added.
MOSCOW — A second squadron of advanced fighter bombers Su-34 will be formed at the air base of the Western Military District in Voronezh in January. Five bombers for the first squadron arrived in Voronezh late in December 2012. “The transfer of another five Su-34 fighter bombers to Voronezh pilots will begin right after the New Year holidays, and they are expected to arrive at Baltimor airfield (Voronezh) on January 15,” they said.
CHELYABINSK — Three little girls, born in 2008, 2009 and 2012, died in a fire, which broke out at a residential house in the village Yushkovo in the Chelyabinsk Region, the press centre of the Chelyabinsk regional emergency situation department reported on Tuesday. The residential house was destroyed completely in the fire, which broke out on Monday evening, the press centre reported. The rescuers, the policemen from the Kaslinsky municipal district and the officials from the prosecutor’s office are working at the fire site. They are calculating the damages from the fire.
KEMEROVO — Two people were killed and eight people were wounded in the fire, which broke out at a residential house in Novokuznetsk, the regional investigation department of the Russian Investigation Committee said on Tuesday. The press service of the regional authorities reported about nine wounded people before.
VLADIKAVKAZ — The avalanche went down on the Trans-Caucasus highway in North Ossetia on the territory of a military unit, which is situated near the Roki tunnel, on the border between North Ossetia and South Ossetia. No casualties were reported in the avalanche, spokesperson for the republican emergency situation department Yulia Starchenko told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — People, who were wounded in the air crash at the Vnukovo airport, are in stable condition, the positive dynamics in their condition is developing, the Russian Health Ministry told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “Two wounded people, namely a 26-year-old woman and a 32-year-old man, are undergoing treatment at the Pirogov clinical hospital number one. The female patient is in satisfactory condition, earlier she was transferred from the intensive therapy ward to the ordinary ward,” a source in the Health Ministry said.
SAMARA — The airliner Boeing-767, which has made an emergency landing in Samara on Monday, took off at 11:40 Moscow time on Tuesday for its destination city Helsinki, the Samara airport Kurumoch reported. The passenger airliner Boeing-767, which belongs to the British air company Thompson Airways with 302 passengers and 7 crewmembers onboard, made an emergency landing at 20:05 Moscow time on Monday at the Samara airport. The airplane was on the flight number 577 from Phuket (Thailand) to Helsinki (Finland).
SOCHI — An avalanche warning was made in Sochi on Tuesday. The avalanche hazardous situation is expected in the mountains at an altitude of more than 1,500 metres above the sea level within a day, the Krasnodar territorial emergency situation department told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. Avalanches may also go down in the Apsheronsk and Mostovsk districts in Kuban.
TBILISI — Several Russian tourists cannot leave the ski resort of Gudauri and return home because the Krestovy Pass on the Georgian Military Road was closed on Monday amid heavy snowfalls. According to these tourists they had arrived in Gudauri for a brief ski holiday and because of adverse weather conditions they cannot return home at the moment as the Krestovy Pass remains closed.
MAKHACHKALA — An officer of the Russian Interior Ministry troops was wounded in a clash with unidentified gunmen in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan on Tuesday afternoon, an officer from the republic’s investigative department told Tass. He said the clash took place in the woodland two kilometers away from the settlement of Gubden, Karabudakhkent district. According to the agency, military from the Interior Ministry troops exchanged fire with a group of indentified gunmen during an operation to comb the woodland.
KIEV — Ukrainian border guards from the Chop border unit detained two Russian citizens with the guitar and saxophone. Two 21-year-old residents of the Moscow Region were attempting to cross illegally the Ukrainian-Slovak border, an official from the Chop border unit of the Ukrainian State Border Service Roman Pavlenko said on Tuesday.
KIEV — Two Russian nationals detained by Ukrainian border guards near the border with Slovakia may be deported already on Wednesday, a well-informed diplomatic source told Tass on Tuesday. Ukrainian border guards from the Chop border unit detained two Russian citizens carrying a guitar and a saxophone on January 5. Two 21-year-old men tried to illegally cross the border between Ukraine and Slovakia, an official from the Chop border unit of the Ukrainian State Border Service Roman Pavlenko said on Tuesday.