Soyuz spaceship successfully transfers to new ISS module.

KOROLYOV, Moscow Region, June 29 (Itar-Tass) - The manned spaceship
Soyuz with three cosmonauts from among the crew of the 24th main
expedition on board has successfully re-docked with the International
Space Station (ISS) after and transfer flight.
Valery Lyndin, spokesman of the Flight Control Center (FCC) outside
Moscow, has told Itar-Tass, "At 23:38, Moscow time, on Monday, Russian
cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin steered the Soyuz TMA-19 manually for it to
moor at the (new Russian) docking module Rassvet (dawn) (or MIM-1)".
NASA astronauts Douglas Willock and Shannon Walker were helping to
monitor the functioning of the onboard systems of the spaceship during the
transfer flight from the service module Zvezda (star). "The (transfer)
maneuver went off in a regular mode," Lyndin emphasized.
The Zvezda module was vacated by the Soyuz spaceship to enable the
resupply spacecraft Progress, the launch of which from Baikonur is
scheduled for June 30, to dock there.

.Russian Center to open at Groningen University on Tuesday.

THE HAGUE, June 29 (Itar-Tass) - A Russian Center opens in the library
of Groningen State University in northern Netherlands on Tuesday.
The idea was suggested by the Russian World Foundation, which in
partnership with the world's leading educational organizations, has
already opened more than 50 such centers all over the world.
For example, China and Ukraine each have four such centers, while
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and South Korea have three ones each. In
the Netherlands, this will be the first Russian Center.
An official at Groningen University has told Itar-Tass that the
northern city, which in Dutch standards is located rather far from both
capitals: the official one Amsterdam and the political capital the Hague,
was chosen as the site for such a center precisely because the local
university is famed for its good school for Slavic studies, Russian
history, and contemporary Russian research.
Groningen University, founded in 1614, is one of the oldest
institutions of higher learning in the Netherlands and major one in the
country's north-east. It has about 22,000 students, with not less than
3,000 foreigners among them. About 700 students attend the Philology
Department, whereas the university library is recognized as one of the
best in Holland from the viewpoint of the application of new technologies.
The Russian Center will be the site for lectures, exhibitions, and
education-and-enlightenment courses, giving access to databases with
information about Russia, its cultural, historical and literary heritage,
Russian education methods and practice, present-day artistic ideas and
programmes.
Such centers are established by the Russian World Foundation with a
view to popularizing the Russian language and culture, supporting
programmes for the study of Russian abroad, developing an intercultural
dialogue and bettering mutual understanding among the peoples.
Subsequently, yet another Russian Center is to open in the Netherlands
on the basis of Leiden University.

.Medvedev to meet with leaders of parliament parties Tue.

MOSCOW, June 29 (Itar-Tass) - President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with
the leaders of parliamentary parties here on Tuesday. Such meetings are
held once in three to four months and have already become regular.
The agenda for such meetings is not strictly regulated. However those
present discuss primarily matters that are of current importance to the
country. This is why Tuesday's meeting will, most likely to deal, first of
all, with the Budget Message and the parliament tasks in implementing it.
The Head of State is to present the main points of the document to the
government on Tuesday.
The Budget Message, with which the President comes forward once a
year, sets out strategic and short-term budgetary policy goals,
coordinated with the general goals and tasks of the economic policy of the
State. They become determining ones in budgetary planning and in the
drafting of a Federal Budget.
International issues will not be apparently left without attention
either. On Monday Medvedev returned home after a tour of the United States
and Canada. One of the main themes during the visit to the US had been the
development of cooperation in high-technology sectors. G-8 and G-20
summits had been held in Canada.
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