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News summary for March 17

All the headlines from the day's news

BEIJING – An upcoming visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia shows the high level of relations between the two countries, Executive Vice-Premier of the Chinese State Council Li Keqiang stated on Sunday. “Xi Jinping will visit Russia soon. This very fact shows how important the relations between our countries are,” Li Keqiang said, adding that political relations between the countries are “at a good level.”

 

MOSCOW – U.S. Administration’s decision to readjust the plans for setting up an antiballistic missile system and make North Korea the focal point of its antimissile efforts opens up a new window of opportunities for Russia in terms of cooperation with China, Itar-Tass was told Sunday by Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. “Renunciation of the fourth phase of deployment of the system elements in Europe and the shifting of accents to the rebuffing of possible missiles attacks from the DPRK makes the antiballistic missile program a subject for serious concern for China, North Korea’s main ally,” he said.

 

MOSCOW – Changes in U.S. plans for creating the antiballistic missile system and, more specifically, the decision to renounce the fourth phase of deployment of the ABM elements in Europe will not affect the Russian-U.S. nuclear arms reduction talks in any major way, MP Vyacheslav Nikonov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma’s foreign policy committee said Sunday. “When it comes to such things, the devil always lurks in details,” he said adding that “we don’t know all the details right now.

 

MOSCOW – The public coalition “For Morality” came out in protection of the State Duma deputies and urged the journalist community to give an assessment to a notorious article in the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily. The public coalition has made an open address to Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, Chairman of the Russian Investigation Committee Alexander Bastrykin and Chief Editor of the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily Pavel Gusev. The public activists voiced confidence in the address that the allegations, which the article titled “The political prostitution changed the sex” contains, “are insulting”, and the article “consists of just blatant rude violations of the journalist ethics.”

 

BELGRADE – Serbia plans borrowing from Russia some $ 500 million instead of the $ 1 billion it hoped to borrow earlier, Mlajan Dinkic said Sunday. He said he had discussed the issue several days ago with his Russian counterpart, Anton Siluanov. “He and I agreed that the Russian Federation would send us a supplementary proposal on granting a loan of $ 500 million to us,” Dinkic said. “I also asked the Russian side to give us better terms than the ones we’ve had so far.”

 

MOSCOW – Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin hopes that the consultations with the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) over the reconstruction of the Luzhniki stadium will end in one-two months and then the Moscow authorities will take a final decision over the scale of the reconstruction of the Luzhniki sport complex.

 

MOSCOW – The Russian Ministry of Education and Science has published requirements for the basic knowledge of Russian by migrants who want to work in Russia. According to its draft instruction published the Ministry’s official website, migrants should be able to read a text and understand its basic meaning and subject. They are also obliged to understand by ear dialogues on everyday and social themes and be able to make logical and coherent phrases. The minimum vocabulary should be 850 words.

 

LONDON – Russian-speaking compatriots residing in Britain will come together in London on Sunday to discuss realization of humanitarian potential of the Russian-speaking community. About a hundred delegates from various parts of Great Britain will take part in the 6th Forum of Russian Compatriots. They include leaders and activists of public, charitable and educational organizations, businessmen, representatives of Russian-language media as well as guests from Russia, Europe and the CIS states.

 

LONDON (CANADA) – Russian ice dance duet Yekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Solovyov has won a bronze medal at the World Figure Skating Championships in London (Canada). Their combined score after short and free programs was 169.19 points. Americans Meryl Davis and Charley White were the gold medal winners (combined score 189.56) while Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir finished 2nd (185.04) at figure skating worlds.

 

MOSCOW – Russian national biathlon team won 29 medals at international competitions in the 2012/2013 season, the Russian Union of Biathletes said at its official website. Of this number, there are eight golds, twelve silver and nine bronze medals. The great part of them was taken by male biathletes – six gold, eight silvers, and five bronzes. Female biathletes got one gold medal, four silvers and four bronzes.

 

YEKATERINBURG, the Urals – The Oktoikh children’s choir from Yekaterinburg will sing rare music pieces written on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov House at a concert on Sunday. “The concert program includes unique music pieces written a hundred years ago for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of accession of the Romanov dynasty to the Russian throne. The State Archives of Russia provided the music scores. The audience will hear the first part of “The Coronation Greeting”, a music piece that was found in the folder of Tsar Nicholas II,” the press service of the Oktoikh choir said. The program will also include music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers.

 

UFA, Bashkortostan – The 75th anniversary of legendary ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev will be marked in his home town of Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, on Sunday. The Bashkir Opera and Ballet Theatre will show ‘La Sylphide’, a ballet in which Nureyev brilliantly danced the part of James almost 50 years ago, on Sunday. “It has become a good tradition with the Bashkir Opera and Ballet Theatre, a place where Nureyev started his way to the big stage, to devote a ballet to the great dancer on the anniversary of his birthday,” Marina Lugovaya, the head of the theatre’s literature and drama department, said.

 

YEKATERINBURG, the Urals – Russia’s first Pancake Forum kicks off in Yekaterinburg on Sunday, the last day of the Maslenitsa festivities. Professional and amateur cooks will take part in it, a source at the organizing committee told Itar-Tass. “We have asked people in various parts in Yekaterinburg whether they know how to cook pancakes. Eighty-five percent replied positively. The main treat and delicacy of the Maslenitsa week is cooked according to a standard recipe,” the organizers went on to say.

 

LONDON – The British security service MI6 paid 90,000 pounds (135,000 dollars) for cooperation after he fled to Britain, Litvinenko’s widow testified to the British police, which are investigating the Litvinenko polonium poisoning case in 2006. “According to testimony provided to Scotland Yard by Marina Litvinenko following her husband’s death, payments from British intelligence began in late 2003 or early 2004 when 18,000 pounds were deposited in the couple’s bank account,” The Sunday Times cited her as saying.

 

MOSCOW – A Russian rapid response naval force in the Mediterranean Sea will consist of 5-6 warships, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Viktor Chirkov stated. The Command of the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be in command of the Russian rapid response naval force, Chirkov said in an interview with the television channel Zvezda on Sunday.

 

KALININGRAD – Frigate Neustrashimy /The Intrepid/ of the Russian Baltic Fleet on Sunday left its base and started heading for the Horn of Africa, off the shores of which its crew will have a tour of duty to guard the safety and security of commercial navigation. “The ship is to cover a long enough route across a section of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez channel, and the Red Sea before it gets to the Gulf of Aden water area,” said Captain 3rd Rank Andrei Bespaly, the senior press officer of Russia’s Western Military District.

 

SARATOV – Four children have poisoned with carbon dioxide in a fire, which broke out at about 06:00 Moscow time on Sunday in a private house in the village Bykov-Otrog in the Balakovo district in the Saratov Region. The fire has spread on two square metres. The relatives brought four little girls aged 2000, 2003, 2009 and 2011 to the city hospital before the arrival of the firemen. The investigation in the fire continues.

 

SARATOV – The investigating bodies in the Saratov Region launched an inquiry prior to the investigation over the death of three girls, who died of carbon dioxide poisoning in the fire, which broke out at about 06:00 Moscow time on Sunday in the village Bykov-Otrog in the Balakovo district, the press service of the regional investigation department of the Russian Investigation Committee reported on Sunday.

 

NALCHIK – A heavy snowfall on the Elbrus Mount does not permit the rescuers to resume the search for two tourists from Poland and Iran that went missing on March 15, the emergency situation department in the Russian North Caucasus Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “A hut, which was built in the saddle between two mountain tops last summer, remained unsearched. There are some hopes that the climbers may stay in the hut,” a source in the republican emergency situation department said.

 

RIGA – The trucks, which are waiting for the entry in Russia, have lined up in long queues on the Latvian-Russian border. As many 450 trucks have jammed at the border checkpoint Terekhovo-Burachki and 80 trucks have piled at the border checkpoint Grebnevo-Ubylinka. The waiting time in a long line of trucks ranges from nine to 43 hours, the Latvian Chief State Border Directorate reported on Sunday.

 

MOSCOW – A cameraman of the Rusiya Al-Yaum satellite news channel, which is a branch of Russia Today TV, was injured Sunday while filming a report in Cairo, the RT said in a press release. Mouhtar Muhammad, the cameraman, was attacked by unknown people and received several blows by a stick on the head while taking footage of the activists who were making graffiti on a wall near the office of Egypt’s ruling Moslem Brotherhood.

 

ST. PETERSBURG – The Lomonosovsky District Court in the Leningrad Region arrested during the investigation Anna Yefimova, 30, who is suspected of neglecting her duties for the upbringing of her two little children. Yefimova was interrogated as a suspect on Saturday, after that the detectives demanded put her under arrest. “The petition of the detective (for her arrest) is satisfied,” the investigation department of the Russian Investigation Committee in the Leningrad Region told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

 

HANOI – Arrested in Cambodia after a conflict with local sailors Russian businessman Sergei Polonsky asked the Russian Foreign Ministry to give psychological aid to him. “Over the misunderstanding caused by contradictory and mutually exclusive information from Moscow, I ask the Russian Foreign Ministry to give the medical aid to me by a qualified psychologist certified by the Russian Foreign Ministry as quickly as possible,” Polonsky said in an address, which was posted in his internet blog.

 

WARSAW – A Russian citizen was detained in Poland on the accusation for the triple murder, the regional police department in Gdansk told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “In the evening last Friday the police in cooperation with the anti-terrorism task force detained a 32-year-old Russian citizen, who is suspected of the murder of a family of three people,” the police reported, noting that at the moment of the arrest he did not put up resistance, but, judging by his belongings, he was planning to flee the republic. “The police have searched through the flat of the detainee, finding the weapon and objects from the murder scene. Probably, the robbery was behind the murder,” the police added.

 

CHISINAU – Public quarters in Moldova are incensed by a non-guilty verdict a court has passed on a general school teacher who slandered ethnic Russian students as ‘invaders’ and said the best thing for them do to would be “to shove off”. Vadim Mishin, the chairman of the Moldovan parliament’s committee on human rights and ethnic minorities said he will press for an eventual issuance of punishment to the teacher.

 

MOSCOW – Chief of a department at the Office of the Transport Prosecutor has been detained for taking a bribe of over 4 million rubles, a spokesman for the Moscow Inter-Regional Office of the Transport Prosecutor told Itar-Tass Sunday. “It has been established that the person, Denis Yevdokimov, on Friday received a bribe of 4.25 million rubles /USD 1=RUB 30.5/ for stopping prosecutorial actions against two companies and for giving them an opportunity to continue business operations as usual,” the spokesman said.