22/7 Tass 4
GORKI — Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev had a meeting on Thursday with trade union leaders. “It has been evident over several years that the authority of trade union organizations and Russian trade unions is not declining, but growing,” he said.
MOSCOW — Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev signed a federal law on additional prevention of selling alcohol to children, the Kremlin’s press service said on Thursday. The law introduces criminal and administrative responsibility for selling alcohol containing beverages to children.
MOSCOW — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a decree to approve the lineup of the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts, the Russian presidential press service reported on Thursday.
KIEV – Head of Ukraine’s State Commission for Regulation of Financial Services Markets Vasily Volga will spend the next two months in a pre-trial detention centre.
MINSK — Belarus has raised car fuel for an average of three percent.
“The Belneftekhim Concern raises from July 21 retail prices at filling stations by three percent,” the concern informed.
MOSCOW — During the current summer, 32 children from Japan will come to rest in Moscow and the Moscow Region, Head of Russia’s consumer rights watchdog Gennady Onishchenko told reporters on Thursday. “They have chosen to have a rest not in the Far East, but in Moscow and in the Moscow Region,” he said. “We shall satisfy this request from Japan’s government.”
SYKTYVKAR — Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev called on police commandos to observe strictly rights and interests of citizens. “The new law on police demands flexible approach to ensuring law and order as well as security. In this connection, I call again your attention to the need for strict observance of legislation and inadmissibility to violate legitimate rights and interests of citizens,” said on Thursday the minister at a meeting of senior officers of police commando units in the North-Western Federal District in Syktyvkar.
LONDON — A Russian media mogul Alexander Lebedev rejected some media reports Thursday about his plans to buy the British weekly News of World, which a media tycoon Rupert Murdoch shut down, the Bloomberg news agency reported earlier. The Russian media mogul told in an interview with the Echo Moskvy radio station that he joked about the foresaid plans.
VLADIVOSTOK — Aircraft of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) on Wednesday poured on burning fires in Yakutia nearly 450 tonnes of water, liquidating nine wildfires. However, the republic is currently affected by 20 forest fires, 10 of them have been localised. More than 1,500 people, 196 pieces of equipment, including 12 aircraft, are engaged in the fire fighting efforts, the press service of the EMERCOM main department for Yakutia reported.
BISHKEK — Fifteen people were injured on Wednesday as an earthquake hit the southern Batken region of Kyrgyzstan, the press service of the republic’s Ministry of Emergency Situations told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
MOSCOW — Russia’s Emergency Situation Ministry /EMERCOM/ has forwarded another portion of humanitarian aid to Libya, the ministry’s information department said on Thursday.
KHABAROVSK — As many as 14 of forest fires at an area of 1,728 hectares were extinguished in the Russian Far East on Wednesday. “However, by Thursday morning, 36 fires are still burning, their total area is 8,136 hectares,” the Forestry Department of the Far Eastern Federal District told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW — The investigators against the ship captains, who neglected the passengers drowning from the sunken MS Bulgaria, announced an expertise to find their guilt, spokesman of the Investigation Committee Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
KRASNODAR — The airport was closed in Krasnodar over a Tu-154 airliner with 142 passengers malfunctioned on the runway. “No people were injured, because the airliner stopped a takeoff on the runway,” the press service of the Bazel Aero Company reported.
MOSCOW — The specialists launched an MS Bulgaria lifting operation to the level of the upper deck, spokesman of the emergency headquarters of the lifting operation Timur Khikmatov told Itar-Tass by phone on Thursday. “The MS Bulgaria lifting operation was launched and its upper deck was lifted 1-1.5 meters above the water level,” he said. The portholes will be plumbed and the water will be pumped out from the ship then.
BARNAUL — The rescuers have found the Volga hydrofoil that sank on the Teletskoye Lake on July 11, a source in the emergencies department of the Russian Republic of Altai told Itar-Tass on Thursday. The hydrofoil sank at the depth of 210 meters. The rescuers have found the hydrofoil by the deepwater vehicle Falkon and are about to decide to lift the hydrofoil. A lifting operation will be launched not earlier than on Friday. Four people may be found dead in the hydrofoil.
MAKHACHKALA — Gunmen have been blocked in a private house in Makhachkala on the Tarki-Tau mount slope. A source in the Interior Ministry of Dagestan told Itar-Tass that there was an exchange of gunfire. There was no immediate information about the number of the blocked militants. Automatic gunfire has been heard in the city since 05:00 MSK.
MAKHACHKALA — Special operation to neutralise members of illegal armed groups has been underway in Makhachkala Thursday morning on Mount Tarki-Tau. According to preliminary data, injuring one law enforcement officer has been wounded in an exchange of fire, a source in the Interior Ministry in Dagestan told Itar-Tass.
MAKHACHKALA— Three militants have been liquidated and one detained during a special police operation in Makhachkala, sources in the republic’s law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass.
MOSCOW — The Moscow police are checking some reports about a smoke at the St. Basil’s Cathedral on the Red Square, a source in the Moscow police told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
MOSCOW— The Moscow police are searching for a hooligan, who hurled a smoke barrel at the St. Basil’s Cathedral, the press service of the Moscow main police department told Itar-Tass on Thursday. No people were injured in the incident.
MOSCOW — Accomplices of Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov were arrested in Yekaterinburg. The firearms, explosives and the extremist literature were confiscated from them, the public relations center of the Federal Security Service told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
MOSCOW— The Basmanny District Court of Moscow has extended the term in arrest for Bashir Khamkhoyev until October 24. The defendant is accused of involvement in a dreadful terrorist act at the Moscow Domodedovo airport, a source in the court told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
NALCHIK — An armed man with previous convictions was detained in downtown Nalchik on Thursday. A grenade and a major amount of explosives were found in his car. The bomb disposal technicians are demining the car, a source in Kabardino-Balkaria’s law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass on Thursday.