Kyrgyz caretaker president Roza Otunbayeva to take office Sat.

BISHKEK, July 3 (Itar-Tass) -- The Kyrgyz capital on Saturday will see
the ceremony of Rosa Otunbayeva taking office as caretaker president.
"The event will take place in the building of the State Philharmonic
Society. Otunbayeva will swear allegiance to the Kyrgyz government and the
Kyrgyz people," the interim government's press-service said. At the same
time it added that "this is not going to be an inauguration ceremony."
The issue of delegating to Otunbayeva presidential powers for a
transitional period ending on December 31, 2011 was put to the vote in a
referendum on June 27. In the ballot papers the voted were asked if they
agreed or disagreed with the amendments to the Constitution. After their
adoption the country made a transition to the parliamentary form of
government. The Otunbayeva-related items, as well as the elimination of
the Constitutional Court, said most members of the Central Election
Commission, "were implied in the light of the changes introduced into the
fundamental basic law." As a result of the voting, in which about 69
percent of the 2.7 million registered voters took part, nearly 90 percent
said YES. Otunbayeva will remain in the presidential seat and that of the
prime minister as well until the October 10 parliamentary elections. After
that she will have to say good-bye to premiership.
"The new constitution has come into force and I got the president's
powers for the transitional period," Otunbayeva said in the evening of 27
June, when the CEC was still in the process of vote counting. Early
returns were announced hours later. The prime minister then would say that
she had made such a conclusion on the basis of the high turnout for the
referendum. Nevertheless, such a premature announcement elicited a
negative reaction from several oppositional political parties critical of
the new authorities. They claimed the poll had been rigged, but they have
failed to produce any proof to this day.
"We have finally entered the legal space," said the head of the
interim government after the referendum. Otunbayeva also declared that
over the coming days the interim government would be replaced by a new
cabinet ministers. Most of the current ministers and deputy prime
ministers will resign to start preparing for parliamentary elections.
After the election of a new national legislature the deputies will be
obliged to appoint a head of government. Under the new Constitution, all
power will be concentrated in the hands of parliament and the prime
minister. The president will retain mostly protocol functions. Moreover,
according to the new basic law, Otunbayeva has no right to run for the
presidency in the next election. This will make everybody sure the
administrative resource will not be put to use.
The interim government rose to power in Kyrgyzstan after the ousting
of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev last April. Bakiyev was forced to leave the
republic and settle in Belarus. As soon as they came to power, opposition
leaders were quick to develop significant political controversies, and
when they did they set eyes on Otunbayeva as a compromise figure good for
all in the position of the head of a temporary administration.
Basically, she has managed to find a common language with all
colleagues in the opposition and to prevent a split of the interim
government. Although it has been in office for less than three months, the
new authorities have been through many trials already - several attempts
at a counter-revolution, inter-ethnic clashes in the north and south, as
well as the tragic massive riots in Osh and Jalal-Abad. During the rule of
the interim government in Kyrgyzstan violent clashes claimed around 400
lives and left about 4,000 people injured. Almost 1,400 homes and
buildings were burned and looted. During the conflict in Osh and
Jalal-Abad an estimated 300,000 to 700,000 fled their homes. The new
authorities put all responsibility for organizing the riots and pogroms on
the entourage and relatives of the ex-president. Bakiyev, in turn,
disclaimed any involvement and labeled the interim government as incapable
and incompetent. Prior to the referendum in Kyrgyzstan there had been no
democratically elected body of state power, as the interim government
dismissed the former prime minister and dissolved parliament by decree.
Kyrgyzstan's caretaker president Roza Otunbayeva was born in August
1950 in the southern regional center of Osh. Has two children - a son and
a daughter. She is the holder of a candidate of philosophical sciences
degree, speaks Russian, Kyrgyz, English, French and German. Over the past
20 years she has twice led the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry. Since 2007
Otunbayeva led the faction of the oppositional Social Democrat party in
the pro-Bakiyev parliament. Played key roles in preparations for what is
known as popular revolutions of 2005 and 2010, which ousted President
Askar Akayev and President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. During the "rose revolution"
in Georgia Otunbayeva represented the interests of the United Nations in
that country.

.Failed docking of Progress with ISS did not upset crew's routine.

MOSCOW, July 3 (Itar-Tass) -- The failed attempt to dock the cargo
spacecraft Progress with the International Space Station (ISS) has had no
effect on the crew's routine.
As Itar-Tass was told at Mission Control outside Moscow, "the mode of
work and leisure on board the ISS has not changed."
On Saturday the station's crew Alexander Skvortsov, Mikhail
Korniyenko, and Fyodor Yurchikhin (of Russia) and Tracy Caldwell Dyson,
Shannon Walker and Douglas Wheelock (of the United States) have a day off.
They will be busy with mandatory maintenance, exercise, and scheduled
cleaning work. The astronauts' spare time will be devoted to hobbies -
reading books, listening to music, watching films or staging research
experiments.
In contrast to the ISS crew, specialists on the ground will be working
very hard to try to find out what went wrong with the automatic approach
control and docking system Kurs (Course), which prevented the cargo
spacecraft Progress M-06M from docking to the ISS and caused it to fly
past.
As the deputy director of the federal space agency Roscosmos, Vitaly
Davydov, explained, there were no attempts at docking in the manual mode,
contrary to some media reports. According to the official, "the docking
procedure continued as expected in the automatic mode, but only to a
certain point."
At a distance of about two kilometers from the ISS there arrived a
command banning any 'dynamic operations' and the docking had to be
canceled. Both the spacecraft and the ISS are in working condition,
Davydov said.
Another attempt at docking is scheduled for Sunday, July 4.

-0-str


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