N Korea to seek diversified cooperation with Russia-foreign minister.

PYONGYANG, June 12 (Itar-Tass) -- The foreign minister of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Pak Ui Chun, has come out for the
further development of relations with Russia.
"We will be expanding mutual exchanges and cooperation with Russia in
the political, economic, cultural and other spheres," he said at a
reception timed for Russia Day.
Russian ambassador in Pyongyang, Valery Suhonin, in turn, said that
"ensuring peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region and strengthening
the friendly relations of partnership with the DPRK were one of the
priorities of Russia's foreign policy.
"The course towards understanding and cooperation between our
countries, based on the inter-state treaty on friendship, good
neighborliness and cooperation, which turned ten just recently, remains
unchanged," Suhonin said.

.Failed S Korean rocket launch to have no effect on plans for Angara.

MOSCOW, June 12 (Itar-Tass) -- This week's failed attempt to launch a
South Korean space rocket will not affect the schedule of works under the
project to create the rocket family Angara, the spokesman for the
Khrunichev State Space Research and Production Center, Alexander
Bobrenyov, told Itar-Tass on Friday.
"The KSLV-1 rocket and Angara are different projects," he explained.
"Although we say that the first stage of the South Korean rocket is a
prototype of Angara, they are different rockets and distinctions between
them are considerable."
The South Korean space rocket Naro-1 exploded last Thursday at an
altitude of about 70 kilometers. Telemetry data stopped coming when the
rocket was 137 seconds into the flight and the first stage, provided by
the Khrunichev Center, was still in action. Thursday's launch attempt was
a second. The first one, in August 2009, ended in failure due to a problem
in the South Korea-made second stage.
The Khrunichev Center is in the process of creating a whole family of
Angara rockets of the light, medium and heavy class on the basis of a
unified rocket module.
The chief of the federal space agency Anatoly Perminov earlier said
that Angara's first launch might take place in 2012.

.Bill giving FSB more powers needs amendments - United Russia.

MOSCOW, June 12 (Itar-Tass) -- The United Russia party's deputies in
the State Duma have called for amending the bill giving wider powers to
the federal security service FSB, which the lower house approved of in the
first reading on Friday, while the Opposition voiced fears that it might
entail abuse of human rights.
As the bill was discussed, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma'
s civil, criminal, arbitration and procedural legislation committee,
Vladimir Gruzdev, warned that "any measure to give new powers to secret
services has always drawn a suspicious reaction from our society."
"Our genetic memory is too strong," he said. "But I am asking all
opponents not to look for a false bottom there where there is none."
"Here and there one may hear people say that now any citizen can be
summoned and warned on any excuse," the legislator said. He is certain,
though, that only those who have a very vague idea of state security
bodies and the specifics of their work can say that the bill will be
tantamount to human rights abuse and to 'tightening screws'. He urged his
fellow members of the United Russia faction and the political opponents to
put the criticism of the bill on the productive track.
"It is necessary to take into account all recommendations and
proposals by fellow legislators and also by representatives of
non-governmental organizations in the process of readying the bill for the
second reading," Gruzdev said. "Our main task is to produce a document
that would be geared to crime prevention, and not plunge us into 1937."
The deputy chief of the constitutional legislation and statehood
committee, Viktor Ilyukhin (of the Communist Party), said that Communists
were unable to vote for this initiative proposed by the government.
"We are deeply convinced that the implementation of these ideas will
breed massive abuse of rights and freedoms of the Russian people,"
Ilyukhin said. "The government seems to have forgotten the lessons of our
past. Although it was a heroic past, there were some very dramatic moments
in it, including the purges."
As he dwelt on the main clause of the bill that sparked the greatest
controversy, which allows FSB agents "to issue an official warnings to an
individual of the impermissibility of actions that bring about the
emergence of causes and create conditions for crimes" Ilyukhin addressed
his fellow legislators to translate it into a normal human language first.
"What shall we have? I can give you a warning that may be ten or a
hundred kilometers away from the wrongdoing that may pose a threat to
society," he said. In his opinion warnings are the job of a prosecutor,
while the FSB may merely present the facts.
"If we are to follow the logic of this bill's wording, then half of
those in this hall - will you excuse my saying so - will deserve getting
such warnings. In particular, the deputies who voted for the laws to
reform the housing and utilities sector, swap fringe benefits for cash and
for many other decisions related to the budget sphere," Ilyukhin said.
The deputy chief of the security committee, Gennady Gudkov, of the
Fair Russia party, said that his fellow party members would not support
the bill, either.
"We believe that the FSB must have the right to take preventive
measures and we would be prepared to support this initiative, if only it
were formulated competently and in a civilized legal language," he said.
Gudkov said that the bill contained no mention of the form in which
the proposed warnings might be issued.
"What does this phrase 'sufficient reasons' mean. Who are they
sufficient for? There are no criteria. We are giving a very lose
interpretation," Gudkov said.
The leader of the Liberal Democrat party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky,
recalled that his faction had invariably voted for initiatives improving
state security and he called for giving the FSB greater powers. The
Liberal Democrats, he said, had abstained this time, but they might
support the initiative, if their position were taken into account by the
second reading.
"Greater attention must be paid to ideology, because there are
left-wing forces that wish to build Communism - and that will be an
attempt to overthrow the existing system," Zhirinovsky warned.

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