DURBAN – South African Republic is hosting several major international functions at a time. The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will get together this country’s main seaport, Durban, for a summit conference of BRICS. It will begin at night and prior to it South African President Jacob Zuma will receive China’s new President Xi Jinping in the capital Pretoria.
DURBAN – Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that he and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh exchange views on urgent problems of bilateral relations and international issues. Putin met the Indian prime minister on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. The Russian president recalled that the Russian and Indian sides were meeting regularly.
BEIJING – The development of comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Russia will give big opportunities for deepening youth exchanges, the deputy chairman of the All-China Youth Federation, Lu Yongzheng, said in an interview with Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Senator of the Federation Council from the Russian Republic of Buryatia Vitaly Malkin stated that he quits the Federal Council “over critical attacks in the media.”
WARSAW – Poland’s Chief Administrative Court on Tuesday upheld a decision not to publish records of telephone conversations between Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that took place in 2010.
DURBAN – Two Russian banks plan to sign an agreement on small business support with their South African counterparts during the second day of the Business Forum of BRICS that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
DURBAN (South Africa) – A BRICS Business Council, which will be created at an upcoming BRICS summit, will become an important business instrument for cooperation between the business quarters, President of the Russian Commerce and Industry Chamber Sergei Katyrin said at a BRICS Business Forum here on Tuesday. He was delegated in a future BRICS Business Council among five prominent Russian business captains.
DURBAN – Five BRICS states agreed to establish the BRICS Development Bank, South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said here on Tuesday. This is done, he said in reply to a journalist’s question over a possible creation of a common financial institution by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
DURBAN – Russia and South Africa have passed a joint declaration on establishment of strategic partnership in the wake of talks held between Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African President Jacob Zuma.
DURBAN - The finance ministers of the BRICS countries have failed to agree on key issues related to the creation of the BRICS Development Bank, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told journalists on Tuesday.
KIEV – Cyprus bank crisis will undoubtedly affect Ukraine’s investment situation, a tax advisor for Goldblum and Partners, Roman Badalis, told reporters on Tuesday.
BRUSSELS – Ukraine intends to hold a “high-level roundtable discussion” with representatives of the European Union soon to consider prospects for the Ukrainian gas transport system (GTS) development, Ukraine’s Minister of Energy and Coal Industry Eduard Stavitsky told Ukrainian journalists here on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Indonesia’s airline Sky Aviation has performed the first commercial flight on the Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100) plane, the press service of the company – developer of the airliner – Sukhoi Civil Aircraft reported on Tuesday.
CHISINAU – Moldova will not get its next tranche of 70 million U.S. dollars from the International Monetary Fund as the government did not fulfil the obligations it had undertaken, Acting Deputy Prime Minister and Economics Minister Valeriu Lazar said on Tuesday.
ZHUKOVSKY ( Moscow region) – Leader of the Civil Platform party Mikhail Prokhorov has suggested granting the advantages similar to those enjoyed by Skolkovo Innovation Center to all science towns in Russia to ensure "a competitive environment", he said.
ASHGABAT – Turkmenistani President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has set particular tasks of the country’s energy strategy, including the stepping up of the commercial development of new oil and gas fields and full-scale upgrading of the petroleum and chemical facilities, the presidential press service said on Tuesday, summing up results of Monday’s working meeting of Turkmenistan’s government.
MOSCOW - An innovative scenario of Russia’s socio-economic development until 2030 requires investments from the National Welfare Fund into long-term innovative projects, Andrei Klepach, Russia’s deputy minister of economy, told journalists on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom hopes for a transparent tender for the construction of two power units for the Temelin NPP in the Czech Republic and is ready for further consultations.
MOSCOW – This year’s capital outflow from Russia may exceed ten billion U.S. dollars due to the recent development around the banking system of Cyprus, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Andrei Klepach told reporters on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – By 2015 retirement pension rates are to go up by 45 percent, Chief of the Pension Fund Anton Drozdov said at an extended meeting of the Pension Fund Board on Tuesday. The endorsed budget envisages further indexation of pensions in 2013- 2015, he said.
MOSCOW – State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin urged to put in order the tomb of a remarkable Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky in Moscow. Naryshkin has delivered a speech at a meeting of the organizing committee over the run-up to the celebrations of the 350th anniversary of the city Penza on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Senator Vitaly Malkin filed an application for abnegating the powers as a member of the Federation Council on his own volition on Tuesday, Chairman of the Federation Council Regulations Committee Vadim Tyulpanov said at a meeting of the committee. “Senator Malkin filed an application for his early stepping down as a Federation Council member,” he said. Malkin set March 25 as a date for him to hand in his mandate of the senator.
YEKATERINBURG – The delegation of the International Exhibitions Bureau (Bureau International des Expositions - BIE) led by Chairman of the BIE Executive Committee Stein Christensen on Tuesday began its work in Yekaterinburg. The delegation is assessing the city’s potential for hosting World Expo 2020. The BIE visit to Russia will last four days, two of which the delegation will spend in Moscow, where it plans meeting with representatives of the federal government.
MOSCOW – Moscow Town Hall allowed the Opposition to hold a rally on April 6, an organizer of the protest action told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. "The rally will take place in Novopushkinsky Square from 14:00 till 17:00, on April 6," Yevgenia Tretyakova said.
MOSCOW – A group of leading actors from the company of Taganka theater have asked the former Taganka theater Chief, Yuri Lyubimov, to return to the theater, the actors said at a press conference held at Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to calculate required social contributions once again, after these social contributions were raised in 2012. The Russian president stated at a meeting with Presidential Business Rights Commissioner Boris Titov that he intends to hold new consultations on this issue.
ST. PETERSBURG – The Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE) has completed the work on the conservation of the Molodezhnaya seasonal field Base in the western part of Enderby Land on the coast of the Cosmonauts Sea. The headquarters of polar science – the St. Petersburg-based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) told Itar-Tass on Monday that the operation was conducted from the Akademik Fedorov research vessel - helicopters delivered diesel fuel for the work in the next season, as well as the necessary building materials to continue the repair of the base buildings that were damaged by hurricane winds.
MOSCOW – Investigators have no claims to Deputy Education Minister Marat Kambolov after questioning him within the framework of the case over corruption at the State University of Management /GUU/, Kambolov's lawyer Kirill Belsky told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – The Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) is planned to make a flight over the Moon on a prospective piloted spaceship after 2030, deputy head of the system designing centre of the Central Scientific-Research Institute of Machine-Building Anatoly Malchenko told reporters at the forum Infospace-2013 on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – The strategy of the development of Russia’s space activities until 2030 and beyond has been submitted to the RF government for approval, head of the Strategic Planning and Target Programs Department of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) Yuri Makarov said on Tuesday at the InfoSpace forum of innovative technologies.
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan – The Proton-M carrier rocket with the SatMex-8 satellite and Briz-M rocket booster onboard lifted off from the Baikonur space launch site on Tuesday.
NEW DELHI – India is in talks with Russia on the lease of the second Shchuka-B multipurpose nuclear submarine of Project 971, which will be adopted for service in the naval nuclear deterrent forces that are being created in the republic, The Times of India reported on Tuesday.
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY – Russian Defence Minister General Sergei Shoigu arrived on a working visit in Kamchatka on Tuesday to inspect the situation in the troops in north-eastern Russia. In particular, he will visit a naval base of strategic and multipurpose nuclear submarines of the Pacific Fleet in Vilyuchinsk, the spokesman of the Russian Navy said.
DUSHANBE – Heavy fighting is reported between the Afghan government forces and the Taliban movement in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province bordering Tajikistan, a high ranking source in Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
YEKATERINBURG – More than 500 depots for ammunition and missiles will be built in Russia within the framework of the state program for the improvement of storage of missiles and ammunition, head of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the RF Defence Ministry Nikolai Parshin said on Tuesday during his visit to the Sverdlovsk Region. Parshin inspected the reconstruction of an ammunition depot in the town of Berezovsky.
LANGKAWI (Malaysia) – Russia’s Rosoboronexport arms exporting company will present the best samples of Russian military equipment and weapons at the 12th International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition LIMA 2013 that is opening in Malaysia on Tuesday.
ASTANA – Kazakhstan is interested in expanding participation of armed forces of NATO member-states and partner countries in the Alliance’s annual military exercise named Steppe Eagle, Kazakh Defence Minister Adylbek Dzhaksybekov said at the meeting with NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai on Tuesday.
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY – A Mi-8 helicopter of Kamchatka Airlines has made a hard landing in the area of the Uzon volcano in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Kamchatka. Preliminary reports suggested that there were no casualties, a source in the law enforcement agencies of the Kamchatka Territory told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY –The Transport Prosecutor’s Office in Kamchatka has launched a probe into the Tuesday morning hard landing of the Mi-8 helicopter (tail number RA-22986) of Kamchatka Airlines, the supervisory agency told Itar-Tass.
ROSTOV-ON-DON – The damages from the flood in the Rostov-on-Don Region were confirmed in 758 out 2,154 houses in the flood area. “The work to estimate the damages, determine the sums of compensations and to make the list of people entitled to compensations will continue today. The return of the evacuated local residents in their houses is planned in the course of the day,” the department for prevention and elimination of emergency situations in the Rostov-on-Don Region told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
KIEV– As many as 44,787 people, including 14,000 policemen, were involved in the cleanup of the heaviest snowfalls for the last century that had been put a spell on Ukraine since March 22, the Ukrainian Ministry of Emergency Situations stated in urgent reports on Tuesday. A total of 5,969 units of machinery, including 60 units of machinery from the Defence Ministry and 41 snow-removing trains were involved in the cleanup of the snowfall.
KEMEROVO – Miner rescuers continue searching for one of the three miners who were hurt when water flooded the Osinnikovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region, a source at the Emergencies Ministry branch for the Kemerovo region told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – Director of the Defense Ministry's economic department Yevgeny Turnin and his deputy Nikolai Butorov are suspected of involvement in the theft of more than 65 million roubles, allocated for a boarding school for female cadets, the press service of the main military prosecutor's office /GVP/ told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – The former director of a branch of the Kubinka military space academy is suspected of stealing ten million roubles from 500 staff, the press service of the main military prosecutor's office told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
ARKHANGELSK – The criminal panel of the Arkhangelsk region court on Tuesday turned down the appeal of former Menatep director Platon Lebedev against the dropping of clemency proceedings, the Court's spokesperson Ksenia Solovyova told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – The Interior Ministry has prevented a theft of more than 350 million roubles worth of assets of the Rostekhnologii state corporation. Former Ministry employee Andrei Kalinin is suspected of involvement, the Ministry's press service told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW – The main flow of narcotic smoking blends goes to Russia from South-East Asia; the Drug Control Service has registered a thirtyfold increase in mailings from the region, which, according to the drug police, contain drugs, head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) Viktor Ivanov told journalists on Tuesday.
MOSCOW – The criminal case over the theft of 65 million roubles allocated for a boarding school for female cadets of the Defense Ministry has been pooled with the probe into fraud in state contracts for maintenance of Defense Ministry facilities, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
ARKHANGELSK – A large batch of grain worth over 200 million roubles has been stolen from a strategic grain reserve at the Arkhangelsk bakery plant, the press service of a regional FSB department for the Arkhangelsk region told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.