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MOSCOW, July 24 (Itar-Tass) —— No Russians were hurt in the shooting incident on the Norwegian Utoya Island, a source at the Russian embassy in Oslo told Itar-Tass by phone. “The embassy keeps permanent contact with the police. The police told us there were no Russian names on the casualties list,” the source said.
GROZNY —— The current situation in Chechnya is predictable and controllable, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Chechen police officers on Sunday. He lauded the Chechen police performance in the first half of this year. “The Chechen Interior Ministry was efficient and stayed in control of the regional situation,” the minister said. “Such performance would have been impossible without close interaction with other law enforcement agencies and citizens.”
MOSCOW —— Thailand has transferred two Russian citizens suspected of large contraband from China and money laundering, Russian Prosecutor General’s Office press secretary Marina Gridneva told Itar-Tass on Sunday. Valery Bovsun and Andrei Ustinov “smuggled over 300 train car loads of consumer goods with the total worth exceeding $70 million from China in 2006-2009. They laundered the profit and bought real estate in Thailand,” Gridneva said. Both men were put on the international wanted list in 2009. On July 23 Thailand transferred Russian citizen Andrei Kozlov who was sentenced by the Kovrov Town Court in the Vladimir region this January for an attempt to sell 100 grams of marijuana in fall 2009.
MAKHACHKALA —— Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has ordered to reward the policemen who took part in the counter terrorism operation in the town of Dagestanskiye Ogni, Dagestan. “A successful operation was held this morning, and two suicide bombers were neutralized,” the minister told Dagestani policemen on Sunday. “The officers who took part in the operation must be rewarded.”
MOSCOW —— The suspected instigator of a conflict in the Mytishchi district of the Moscow region, in which two natives of Makhachkala died, has been detained, the Moscow regional police told Itar-Tass on Sunday. The police opened a hooliganism case. Also, five natives of Dagestan involved in the conflict were detained.
MOSCOW —— Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov will come to Azerbaijan on a working visit on Sunday to discuss a longer period of the rent of the Gabala radar station amongst other issues, the Defense Ministry told Itar-Tass. “The Russian defense minister will have a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and hold negotiations with his counterpart Col. Gen. Safar Abiyev,” the ministry said. “The defense ministers will discuss the current status and development prospects of the national armed forces and defense and military-technical cooperation, including an extended period of the Russian rent of the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan.”
MOSCOW —— Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will witness the startup of the seventh and eighth units of the Surgut state district power plant GRES-2 and the twelfth unit of the Sredneuralsk GRES in the videoconference mode on Monday, the government press office said on Sunday. The units were built in fulfillment of foreign investors’ commitments. Advanced technologies ensure the units’ efficiency ratio of 56-58%, which is a third higher than the industry’s average and cuts atmospheric discharges significantly.
MOSCOW —— The Moscow tourists missing on the foothills of the Eastern Sayan Mountains in the Irkutsk region have been found, a source at the regional emergency situations department told Itar-Tass by phone. “The families said that the missing tourists used a satellite phone to call home from the shore of Lake Medvezhye,” he said. “The group leader said they were in good health, did not need medical aid and carried sufficient amounts of food. The tourists lost their way.”
MOSCOW —— Divers have found another body inside the sunken MS Bulgaria, and the total death toll of the shipwreck is now 120, a source at the Tatarstan Emergency Situations Ministry told Itar-Tass on Sunday. “There are two women left on the missing list,” the source said. Two floating cranes lifted the ship from the Volga River bed and towed it to shallow waters. Divers started to examine the ship at dawn and six bodies were found. The engine room has not been examined so far.
PYATIGORSK —— The terror rate in the North Caucasus has declined by approximately a third but militants are still planning high-profile crimes, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told police chiefs of the North Caucasian Federal District on Sunday. “Joint efforts of the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the National Counter Terrorism Committee and the Federal Operative Staff cut the terror rate in the district by almost 36% in the first half of this year, as compared with the first six months of last year,” he said.
MOSCOW —— Four out of the six bodies found on the MS Bulgaria wreck site on Sunday are identified, a source at the Tatarstan Health Ministry told Itar-Tass. The bodies of two men and four women were taken to the republican forensic medical bureau. “Three women and a man were identified. The man is crewmember Vladimir Nazarov born in 1937. The identification of the other victims continues,” the source said.
PYATIGORSK —— A total of 209 militants, including 24 militant leaders, were killed in the North Caucasus in the first half of the year, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told police chiefs of the North Caucasian Federal District on Sunday.