#2
ORT Review
www.ortv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba7@bu.edu)
Research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
at Boston University
HEADLINES,
Tuesday, December 04, 2001
- Federation Council Speaker Yegor Stroev has announced his decision to leave the position. He recommends St. Petersburg representative Sergei Mironov as his replacement. This suggestion is supported by the Federation group, which includes most of the senators.
- As of the beginning of December, Russian banks can buy the new European currency -- the Euro.
- Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov met with Russian Presidential Aide on Information Policy Sergei Yastrzhembsky. They discussed cooperation in the sphere of information.
- Rizvan Larsanov, an important Ichkerian political leader and public figure, was killed in the Chechen city of Novye Atagi.
- A delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) headed by Lord Judd will work in Ingushetia. The European parliamentarians will meet with the republic's leaders, visit refugee camps, and then head to Chechnya's Nadterechnyi region, to the Znamenskoe settelement, to meet with OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) representatives.
- Minister of Taxes and Collection Gennady Bukaev met with the leaders of Russian media organizations. He asked journalists to provide their audiences with more information about the new tax code. The main topic on the agenda was, however, the upcoming cut in the tax concessions enjoyed by media organizations.
- The forum of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs opened in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Kudrin and Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matvienko were among the forum's speakers.
- Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu met with select leaders of Emergency Ministry operative groups in Kirghizia and Tajikistan to discuss the delivery of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met with his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres in Bucharest. They discussed the situation in Afghanistan and in the Middle East.
- Ivanov also met with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
- The trial of Chechen terrorist Salman Raduev and his supporters continues in Machachkala. Two new witnesses -- Aiset Dadashev and Fatima Taimaskhanova -- testified against Raduev today.
- Twelve people died and two were injured when a bus arriving in Moscow's Izmailovo park caught fire. According to the two survivors, one of the passengers was cooking breakfast on a portable gas stove, which exploded.
- President Putin has arrived to Severodvinsk to attend the dedication ceremony of the new Gepard nuclear submarine. President Putin will also meet with the governor of the Arkhangelsk region [Anatoliy Yefremov].
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov is on a working visit in the Privolzhskii-Uralskii military district. This morning he met with the commanders of the Second Army. Ivanov noted that the main efforts of military reform must be concentrated on the regional divisions. The Defense Minister will also visit a long-range aviation air base in Engels.
- Orthodox Christians are celebrating the Feast of Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, the last major holiday before Christmas. Patriarch Aleksis II will conduct a mass at the Uspenskii Cathedral at the Kremlin.
- Federal Security Service officers and investigators from the General Prosecutor's office have resumed search-and-rescue operations at the site of the Il-76 crash site in the Khabarovsk region. Two black boxes found yesterday will be sent to Moscow for investigation. The cause of the crash has not yet been established.
- A Russian-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission will meet in Moscow for the first time in three years. The meeting will be conducted by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh. According to information received from Kasyanov's administration, a document strictly outlining the amount of gas deliveries and payment conditions will be signed at the meeting.
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