Interior Ministry to publish draft law on police Saturday.

MOSCOW, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's Interior Ministry will make
public a new draft law on police on Saturday after President Dmitry
Medvedev ordered the publication.

A special discussion floor was created for the publication and
examination of the document and everybody can place his/her own remarks
and proposals.
The debates on the draft law will last until the middle of September.
After this the document will be revised to be finalized by December.
"This is the first time we are putting forward for a wide discussion a
draft law concerning the interests of every citizen, because police are in
contact with one and all," Medvedev, who personally controls reforms in
the country's Interior Ministry, said.
"I hope for a constructive discussion," he said. "It should be not
abstract, but specific and to the point and concern individual sections,
chapters, paragraphs and related articles of the law with proposals for
improvement of the law."
The president promised that all proposals will be carefully studied.
"Police are the structure that cooperates with the civil society more
closely than other law enforcement institutions, special services,
prosecutor's office and court. Police should regularly inform mass media
and public organizations about their activities and they should do this
not as a mere formality as it often happens, but to the point," the
president said.
Medvedev stressed that the new law should clearly regulate the use of
arms and physical force by police. He demands tougher requirements for
personnel, stronger anticorruption component and better norms of public
control over police actions.
The reform of the Interior Ministry was kicked off by the president's
decrees signed on December 24, 2009, and January 12, 2010. Under these
documents during two years the Ministry's staff should be cut by 20
percent. Moreover, from 2012 public security police will be financed only
through the federal budget.



.14 miners killed in eastern China mine fire.

BEIJING, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Fourteen miners were killed and
another 23 remain trapped underground after the fire engulfed a gold mine
in Shandong Province, eastern China, on Friday, the Xinhua news agency
reports on Saturday with reference to local authorities.
There were 329 miners underground, when the fire ripped through the
Luoshan Gold Mine in Zhaoyuan as a result of short circuit in the electric
cable.
A total of 292 miners were lifted to the ground safely.
The rescue operation is underway.



.UAZ to build mobile offices for employment centres.

ULYANOVSK, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's Ulyanovsk car-making plant
UAZ begins to manufacture mobile offices for employment centres, the plant'
s press service said.
A mobile office is created on the basis of a UAZ-3741 minivan that
will have all necessary equipment, including notebooks and an internet
access, and will use an external electric power line.
A test model rolled off the plant's assembly line in June. At present,
UAZ launched a serial production. The consumer will get mobile offices in
August-October.
Anton Chubykin, supervisor of the project for employment centres, said
the geography of exports is vast - from central Russia to the Far East.
A specially equipped off-road vehicle will allow employment centres to
provide its services to people residing in remote and hard-to-reach
regions.
UAZ actively cooperates with state and corporate structures.
In 2009 it fulfilled the contract on mobile offices for the Russian
Pension Fund.



.Russia's former hockey star can head Kazakhstan's national team.

ASTANA, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Famous Soviet ice hockey right winger
Andrei Khomutov was named a new head coach of Kazakhstan's Barys, a
professional ice hockey team based in Astana.
"There were many candidates, but the board of trustees choose
Khomutov," the president of Barys, Nurlan Orazbayev, said on Friday. "The
club signed a two-year contract with him."
He also added that Khomutov is the main candidate for the post of head
coach of Kazakhstan's national team that will take part in the Asian
Winter Games, a multi-sport event for members of the Olympic Council of
Asia, in 2011.
"The executive committee should take a decision on this in late
August-early October," Orazbayev said.



.Union of Armenians collects aid for fire-stricken families.

MOSCOW, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - The Union of Armenians in Russia
offered condolences to wildfire victims and expressed readiness to provide
every possible assistance to those who lost their relatives and homes in
fires.
Armenia's communities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Kaluga and
Volgograd regions, Krasnodar and Stavropol territories began to collect
funds and property for fire-stricken regions.
At present, they collected 7 million roubles and around 100 tonnes of
humanitarian consignment (clothes, footwear, food, goods for children,
hygienic item, and household units).
On August 10, the first batch of humanitarian aid will be delivered to
the Moscow region.