#4 - 7138
TV1 Review
www.1tv.ru
Compiled by Luba Schwartzman (luba_sch@hotmail.com)
Research Analyst, Center for Defense Information, Moscow office
HEADLINES,
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
- Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda. They discussed economic cooperation, particularly in the energy and military-technological sectors.
- Leading Russian media organizations signed the Anti-Terrorism Convention – a set of regulations for journalists covering terrorist acts and anti-terrorist operations.
- Twelve employees remain at the Russian Consulate in Iraq. They maintain constant communications with Moscow and send detailed information about the situation in the country. There are currently no plans to evacuate them. According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative Aleksandr Yakovenko, the Russian diplomatic mission is not the only one still open in Baghdad -- others include the missions of France and Germany.
- Russian Ambassador to Iraq Vladimir Titorenko returned from Syria to Iraq. Titorenko will personally participate in the evacuation of his driver, who was seriously wounded when the Russian automobile convoy came under fire. The other embassy workers who were in the convoy are returning to Moscow.
- A presidential decree has set the personnel of the State Committee for the Fight Against Illegal Drugs and Psychotropic Substances at 40,000. Viktor Cherkesov, the head of the Committee declared that 30,000 of the employees will be former tax police officers.
- UN General Secretary Kofi Annan will visit St. Petersburg on Saturday. He will discuss the situation in Iraq with Russian government officials.
- UNESCO officials will not be able to support Leonid Roshal's initiative to evacuate Iraqi children from areas of military activity.
- Cosmonauts from the Sixth International Space Station Expedition entered open space for six hours of scientific and technical work.
- A fifteen-year-old boy, who was trying to run away to Iraq to fight the American and British forces, was detained in the port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka.
- President Putin met with activists from the Russian Agrarian Movement to discuss agricultural issues, including the sale of land, harvesting and meat imports.
- A special commission continues the investigation of the fire at the school in the Yakut settlement of Sydybyl. A decree of the President of the Republic of Yakutia orders payments of 50- 100,000 rubles to the family of every child who suffered in the fire. Fire drills were held in all schools in Yakutsk
- The only zoo on the Kamchatka Peninsula may be closed. There are no "do not feed the animals" signs on the cages -- the animals have nothing to eat. Visitors say that it is very sad to see the dying creatures.
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