#3 - JRL 7041
TV1 Review
www.1tv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba_sch@hotmail.com)
Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information, Moscow office
HEADLINES
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
- The informal meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries is drawing to a close in Kyiv. Economic issues, including energy, transport and the food market were discussed today. The summit closed with a meeting of the presidents of the Slavic countries -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
- Leonid Kuchma was unanimously elected Chairman of the Council of the Presidents of the CIS nations.
- Over 200 official delegations from around the world will come to the Museum of the Stalingrad Battle in Volgograd.
- Megan McRee, a US citizen living in Moscow was deported to Los Angeles. The Public Relations Center of the Federal Security Service reported that she has been maintaining contacts with Islamic extremists over the internet, suggesting scenarios for terrorist acts, including terrorist acts on US soil, and offering her help in carrying them out. McRee, born 1968, has been living in Moscow on an expired visa and without proper registration. - Russian physicists are developing a nuclear reactor of a new generation. It will use lead and bismuth instead of uranium and plutonium. Two successful experiments have been conducted. Director and author of the experiment Professor Igor Ostretsov declared that the use of non-actinide isotopes will enable a cheap and “anti-terrorist” reactor.
- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov declared that the information the US is supposed to present on Iraq has to be carefully studied. If the war becomes inevitable, Russia will take all the necessary measures to evacuate its citizens out of Iraq. About 700 experts are currently working there.
- Aleksandr Yakovenko, an official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Russian journalists that Moscow sees no reason for using military force against Iraq. He said that there remain political and diplomatic solutions to the problem, and that international inspectors should be able to continue their work.
- Moscow schools can now accept children who are six, and even five, years old into first grade.
- President Putin has refuted reports that Russian passports are being given out to Abkhaz residents en masse. He also noted that, in recent years, 1 million Georgians emigrated to Russia, 650,000 of them receiving Russian citizenship. "In that case, why should we reject the residents of Abkhazia?"
- The Federation Council has confirmed Sergei Mironov as speaker by a vote of 159 to zero, with two abstentions. New members of the upper house of parliament include former traffic police director, Vladimir Fedorov, representing Karelia; the head or the Krasnoyarsk Krai Directorate of the FSB, Aleksei Shishkov, representing Krasnoyarsk Krai, and the former first vice president of Alrosa, Aleksandr Matveev, representing Yakutia.
- Three cisterns with oil fell into a river, spilling 120 tons of oil, when an explosion rocked a train coming from Azerbaijan, as it was crossing a bridge in the Samtskhe region of Georgia. Georgian security services are not ruling out the possibility of a terrorist act.
- Yan Nepomnyashchii, a 12-year-old student from the Bryansk Oblast won the junior division of the world chess championship. He can beat any chess player in the oblast, including his coach, in 2-5 minutes.
- The traffic police will increase measures to fight violators and raise standards for driving schools.
- Moscow’s Helicon Opera is presenting “Peter the Great,” by French composer Andre Gretry.
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