Officials promises high-level celebration of N Caucasus town's jubilee.

PYATIGORSK, North Caucasus, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's federal
government is contemplating high-level celebration of the 5,000th
anniversary since the foundation of the North Caucasus town of Derbent,
which is located in the region of Dagestan, a high-rank official said
Monday.
"This will be a significant event for the entire Russia," Alexander
Khloponin, the Russian President's plenipotentiary representative in the
Southern Federal District said Monday.
"North Caucasus has many competitive advantages in general," he said
as he met with the young people taking part in the first all-Caucasus
summer camp Mashuk'2010.
Khloponin pointed out the good prospects for developing alpine skiing
resorts here, since the area has the necessary landscape and climatic
conditions for this.
"We need health rehabilitation tourism that has a history of over 200
years in the region of the Caucasian Mineral Spas," he said. "And quite
naturally, we heed historical tourism that has a broad and very attractive
basis in North Caucasus."
Khloponin said a whole big workgroup will monitor the projects related
to historical tourism.
Derbent is to turn 5,000 years old in 2015.

.Wheat prices fall on markets after forecasts for rainfall in Russia.
LONDON, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Prices of wheat fell on the
international grain markets Monday following the European and U.S. weather
forecasters' predictions that intensive rains were about to come to
Russia's territory within the next few days.
As a result, Monday's trading on the Chicago Board of Trade closed
with a bushel of wheat losing 5.2%, or 38 U.S. cents, to $ 6.9625.
Russia's weather "is the next driver" for wheat prices, Bloomberg news
agency quoted Mark Worrell, the director of sales and trading at the
British grain trading company Openfield. "The market is waiting for the
next big news."
The rains forecasted by meteorologists will make it possible for the
Russian farmers to remedy the dramatic situation with the aftermaths of
this summer's unprecedented drought and to do the planting of winter
crops, which will set the scene for a fair harvest in the first six months
of 2011.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture revised its estimate for
Russia's wheat crops in 2010-2011 downwards to 45 million tons versus the
assessment for 53 million tons that the DoA analysts came up with in July.
The arrival of rains in Russia may force the DoA to revise the
estimates again, however.

.More than 30 swimmers rescued during storm on Far East beach.

VLADIVOSTOK, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - A total of 33 people, including
two children, have been rescued during a storm off the shores of Livadia,
a popular beach town in Russia's Far East.
Officials at the Primorsky /Maritime/ territory branch of the Ministry
for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense /EMERCOM/, a strong wind
accompanied by high-rising sea waves was clearly seen over the water area
adjoining the Livadia beaches but people kept going into the water and the
waves pulled them away from the coast into the sea.
Several people were carried away into the sea spaces on inflatable
airbeds and only the presence of a rescue engine boat nearby prevented a
tragedy.
The people who had found themselves in a disastrous position were
taken aboard where medics gave them essential aid.
Luckily, no one of the rescued needed hospitalization.


.Reps of 33 left-wing parties to get together in Argentina.

BUENOS AIRES, August 17 (Itar-Tass) - Consolidation of unity of
left-wing political forces worldwide will be the focal point of a
conference of the Sao Paolo Forum, which unites the left-wing parties and
movements.
The conference opens Tuesday in Argentina. It brings together
representatives and activists 33 parties and movements.
The Russian Federation is represented by the left-off-center Fair
Russia party.
Participants in the conference are expected to analyze the situation
in Honduras, Colombia, Panama, and Chile where right-wing political forces
are in power.
On the other hand, the basic document issued by the Sao Paulo Forum
claims the left wing's important victories Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador
did not let the right-wing counteroffensive revert the process of change
that are currently sweeping Latin America.
Another issue occupying a prominent place on the agenda is the
clearing away of the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
The same group of priority items includes the strengthening of public
security, improvement of the quality of life, elimination of the illegal
sales of drugs, and protection of the environment.
The document also says that right-wing-leaning or ultra-right
governments are standing at the helm of power in most countries of the
European Union. They display a tendency towards xenophobia and racism,
which is reflected in the new migration laws they adopt.
The Sao Paulo Forum's document accuses the European governments of the
attempts to shift the burdensome aftermaths of the heaviest crisis, which
broke out in 2008, to their own working people and to the developing
nations.
Quite naturally, the workers react to these attempts with protests, it
indicates.
The Sao Paulo Forum marks its 20th jubilee this year. It was
instituted at the initiative of the Brazilian Workers Party in Sao Pulo in
July 1990.
Over the two decades that have passed since then, it has grown into
the largest left-wing organization in Latin America and the Caribbean.
-0-kle


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