GORKI — Russia is set to develop relations with Lebanon and will do its best to help consolidate the nation, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.
MINSK — Countries of the Commonwealth of Independent State (CIS) would not object if Georgia decides to rejoin the commonwealth, chairman of the CIS executive committee and CIS executive secretary Sergei Lebedev said on Tuesday.
MINSK — Belarus has prepared a very substantial and interesting concept of its CIS presidency in 2013, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev said on Tuesday. “Belarus has presented the concept of its CIS chairmanship, a very interesting and substantial document that has been now sent to CIS member states,” he said commenting on the agenda of a regular session of the CIS Council of Permanent Representatives. This session is expected to analyze Belarus’s plans and consider the plan of events to translate them into practice.
MINSK — The advance group of the CIS observer mission heads on Wednesday for Armenia to monitor the upcoming presidential election, CIS Executive Secretary Sergei Lebedev told reporters on Tuesday. According to Lebedev, the head of the mission will be approved on Tuesday and “on Wednesday an advance party flies to Armenia to open the headquarters of the CIS mission for monitoring the election”.
MINSK — CIS executive secretary and chairman of the CIS executive committee Sergei Lebedev will lead a CIS observer mission at the presidential elections in Armenia, the press service of the CIS executive committee reported on Tuesday.
BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan highly appreciates the assistance and tangible support given by the United States to promote democratic reforms in Kyrgyzstan, a department for informational politics of the apparatus of the Kyrgyz president quoted Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev as saying in a telegram to U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday. The telegram was sent to Washington on Tuesday on the occasion of an official inauguration of Barack Obama who was sworn into office as the U.S. president for a second term.
BISHKEK — Kyrgyzstan’s United Nations Ambassador Talaibek Kadyrov has called on the UN to intensify cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in the security area, the press service of the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
OSLO — Russia doesn’t link its presence in the Arctic with fulfilling any global military-political missions, Yevgeny Lukyanov, the deputy secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said on Monday at the international conference Arctic Frontiers in Tromso, Norway.
MOSCOW — A full-scale evacuation of Russian citizens from Syria is not planned, Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — The Russian Embassy in Syria continues to work in the usual mode, Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. “The embassy continues to work in the usual mode,” he confirmed. “We closed the Russian General Consulate in Aleppo, because the hostilities continue there, and the Russian diplomatic mission can hardly fulfil its functions,” the diplomat said.
KIEV — Ukrainian Opposition leader Yulia Timoshenko denies the charges of masterminding the murder of lawmaker and businessman Yevgeny Shcherban, her daughter Eugenia Timoshenko said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — The Russian State Duma lower parliament house on Tuesday turned down a bill stripping Russia’s former presidents off their immunity. The bill was initiated by the Communist Party faction members.
MOSCOW — Russia’s embassy in the Eritrean capital Asmara has taken addition measures to enhance security of Russian diplomats and citizens in that country. The Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday after the Monday incident when an army unit seized the ministry of information.
KIEV — The exact date of a meeting in Lvov on the Dniester conflict settlement in the “5 + 2” format is unknown so far, but it is expected that it will be held in February, Acting Director of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s Information Policy Department Yevgeny Perebiynis told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — The situation is Damascus has somewhat calmed down, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told journalists on Tuesday. “I have just spoken to our ambassador in Damascus. He said the situation has become much quieter in the recent days,” he said.
DAVOS — Russian Prime Minister arrived in Switzerland’s Zurich on Tuesday, from where he will take a helicopter to reach the ski resort town of Davos to take part in World Economic Forum.
MOSCOW — The scenarios of Russia’s development worked out by the international expert council for Russia at the World Economic Forum are not favorable, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said at a briefing on Tuesday. However, the Russian government believes that such presentation of the problem lets Russia think about what must be changed in the country’s policy, he stressed.
BEIJING — Russia’s oil export to China may increase by 2.5 times – from 20 million tons to 50 million tons a year by 2020. “Last year Russia exported to China 20 million tons of hydrocarbons, which amounted to 7.4 percent of the total volume of oil purchased by China abroad,” expert of the Central Financial Economic University Tong Bei told ITAR-TASS. According to the expert, the two countries’ cooperation in the energy sphere is actively developing. “A joint refinery is being built in Tianjin (North China) now. After it is put into operation, the export of Russia’s energy carriers to China will increase by 13 million tons a year,” she forecasts.
LONDON — A delegation of Russia’s Ulyanovsk region, which is located in the middle reaches of the Volga and which occupies the top position among Russian constituent territories in the World Bank’s ratings of friendliness to business, is expected to showcase its investment potential here Tuesday. The delegation is led by the regional Governor, Sergei Morozov.
LONDON — Economic cooperation between Russia’s Ulyanovsk region and Great Britain is estimated at one billion pounds, or 1.6 billion U.S. dollars, governor of the Ulyanovsk region Sergei Morozov said on Tuesday at a meeting with British businessmen held at the Russian embassy.
SAMARA — The share of the LADA brand on the Russian market decreased upon the results of 2012, the press centre of the Russia’s biggest carmaker AVTOVAZ said, adding that only 18.3 percent of all sales of new cars in Russia accounted for the LADA brand in 2012.
SAMARA — The sales of cars and automobile units by Russia’s major carmaker AVTOVAZ exceeded 718,000 in 2012, the plant’s press centre said on Tuesday, adding that the company outstripped both the output and sale targets for the year.
YEKATERINBURG — The federal organising committee of the RussianExpoArms-2013 exhibition will gather for its first meeting in February 2013, the press service of Sverdlovsk Regional Governor Yevgeny Kuivashev told Itar-Tass on Tuesday, reaffirming that the exhibition is planned to be held at the Staratel range near Nizhny Tagil in September 2013.
MOSCOW — Gay activists, who came to the Duma building to challenge a bill that bans advocating homosexual relations, have clashed with their opponents outside the Duma building in Georgiyevsky by-street. Several gay activists received bruises in the clashes, Itar-Tass reported on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Galina Stepanenko-People's Artist of Russia, will perform the duties of Chief ballet choreographer of Bolshoi Theater while its official Chief ballet choreographer, Sergei Filin, is recovering after a barbarous attack on him made near his house in Troitskaya street in Moscow late on January 17.
GORKI — Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has demanded that the State Duma should outline its attitude to the proposed anti- tobacco bill which got stuck in the bog of proposals made by the tobacco lobby. "The bill against smoking is underway, but they say it has put so much stuff on proposed by representatives of the tobacco lobby that passing the bill makes absolutely no sense," Medvedev declared at a meeting with representatves of the Duma factions, adding that he had not yet read the proposed bill in a final version.
MOSCOW — The law, which the State Duma approved over the ban for the adoption of Russian children by the US citizens, does not have an effect on those child adoption cases, the court verdicts in which were handed down before January 1, 2013, the Russian Supreme Court explained its position on the issue on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — A decision on the re-organization of the 31st clinical hospital in St.Petersburg should be made, proceeding from the interests of the children concerned, said Russian Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, commenting on plans to adapt the hospital for different patients.
MOSCOW — Russia and Nicaragua agreed to develop cooperation in the areas of space and transport, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday after a Moscow meeting of co-chairmen of the Russian-Nicaraguan intergovernmental commission for trade-and-economic and scientific-and-technological cooperation.
MOSCOW — The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have agreed on the text of the Agreement on Cooperation in the exploration of Mars (ExoMars) and other bodies in the solar system, press secretary of the Russian Space Agency Anna Vedishcheva said on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense /EMERCOM/ is dispatching two jets to Beirut to evacuate the Russians who have made known their willingness to leave neighboring Syria, EMERCOM spokeswoman Irina Rossius told Itar-Tass. “Flights of two jets, an Ilyushin-76 and Yakovlev-42, to Beirut have been chartered for Tuesday, January 22, to help the Russians willing to come back to Moscow to do so,” she said.
MOSCOW — A second plane of Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Situations /EMERCOM/ took off from Ramenskoye airfield outside Moscow at 12:25 Moscow time on Tuesday and is on its way to Beirut to evacuate Russians who have decided to leave neighboring Syria, EMERCOM’s information department sources told Itar-Tass.
BEIRUT — The arrival of two EMERCOM planes that will evacuate Russian nationals wishing to leave Syria is expected in Beirut at about 5 pm on Tuesday. According to updated reports, 88 Russian nationals, including 35 children, will be evacuated on board a Yak-42 and an Il-76 plane of the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations.
BEIRUT — Three buses taking Russian nationals from Syria have crossed the Lebanese border. Russian diplomats arriving to the Al-Jdeida-Masnaa border check point offer them consular assistance. The number of Russian nationals who left Syria will be specified later. The bus convoy will head for the international airport of Beirut where two EMERCOM planes that will evacuate Russian nationals wishing to leave Syria are expected to arrive at 5 pm and 5:15 pm Moscow time on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — A Russian emergencies ministry’s planes, one of the two sent to Beirut to evacuate Russian nations who want to leave Syria, has taken off from Beirut, a ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — Moscow has welcomed the decision of South Sudan’s leadership to hand over to Russian specialists fight recorders from the Mi-8 helicopter brought down in December, Russian Foreign Ministry sources said on Tuesday. “We hope that the results of decoding flight information will help to shed light on the circumstances and reasons of the tragic incident in which four Russian nationals were killed,” the sources stressed.
KRASNODAR — A freight train collided with a Zhiguli car in the Strominsky district in the Krasnodar Territory on Tuesday. “The Zhiguli passenger was killed, the driver was hospitalized,” the press service of the Krasnodar territorial road police told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW — Five people were injured in a major road accident involving a shuttle taxi in the Istra district of the Moscow Region, according to the preliminary reports, the Moscow regional emergency situation department said on Tuesday.
SAMARA — The number of people hospitalized after a bus-truck collision in Russia’s Samara region on Monday grew from 26 to 32 on Tuesday, sources from the regional healthcare ministry told Tass. “Twelve people remain in hospitals of the region’s Yelkhovo and Krasnoyarsky districts, another 20 people are in the Kalinin district clinic, and two of them are in a grave condition,” ministry sources said.
KRASNOYARSK — A passenger plane of S7 Airlines made an emergency landing at Tolmachevo airport in Russia’s Siberian city of Novosibirsk. Nobody was injured. The plane was on its way from Abakan to Moscow. Sources from the West Siberian transport prosecutor’s office said “an A-319 plane landed at 09:37 local time (06:37 Moscow time)”. According to early reports, the crew of the plane reported depressurization of the cabin.
GROZNY — A total of 22,000 people living in the Chernorechye district of Chechnya’s capital Grozny were cut off from the gas distribution network Monday night, a duty officer at the Chechnya regional branch of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense /EMERCOM/ told Itar-Tass. “A report was received by the switchboard office of EMERCOM’s regional branch at 22:37 Monday on a damage sustained by a medium pressure pipeline in the Chernorechye district,” he said.
MOSCOW — Five Russian tourists, who were injured in a major road accident in France, will be discharged from the local hospitals no earlier than the end of this week, spokesperson for the Federal Tourism Agency Irina Shchegolkova told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
VLADIVOSTOK — The aviation kerosene is leaking from the semi-tanks of the freight train that derailed in the Amur Region. The fuel is leaking from four tanks, which capsized, the press service of the regional emergency situation department told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
YEKATERINBURG — Three people were injured, as a boiler exploded in a 2-storey residential house in the village Petrokamenskoye in the Sverdlovsk Region, spokesman for the Sverdlovsk regional emergency situation department Valery Gorelykh told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW — The Investigative Committee /SK/, jointly with agents of the Federal Security Service /FSB/ is searching offices at the Chelyabinsk region administration, within the framework of a criminal case over slander against the chairperson of the Chelyabinsk regional court, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KIEV — Ukraine's First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin said the criminal cases against former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko were not political reprisals. "What are political reprisals?," he said on ICVT television, let's understand the same words to mean the same things. "Political reprisals are illegal prosecution of political opponents for their political activity," Kuzmin said.
MOSCOW — Police detained the first deputy prefect of Moscow's southern district on suspicion of extortion of two million roubles from a business person, the Interior Ministry's press service told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KIEV — Ukrainian investigators said the conflict over the division of the natural gas market in the Donetsk region was the prime motive behind the murder in 1996 of businessman and lawmaker Yevgeny Shcherban. Former Cabinet officials Yulia Timoshenko and Pavel Lazarenko are suspected of involvement.
MOSCOW — Chairman of the Russian Investigation Committee Alexander Bastrykin pledged to investigate in detail the current situation in the life of the orphans at the Uglich orphanage, where upon the results of the inquiry the criminal case was opened over the negligence of the orphanage workers and the abuse of powers by the director of the orphanage.