Maritime Collegium of Russian govt to consider Arctic strategy Sat.

MURMANSK, October 2 (Itar-Tass) -- The Maritime Collegium of the
Russian government on Saturday will consider the implementation of its
development strategy in the Arctic, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov announced at a meeting of the Russian government's presidium last Thursday.

"On Saturday I will chair an on-site session of the Maritime Collegium
of the Russian government," he said. "We will consider two questions:
progress in the implementation of the basic state policy in the Arctic for
the period until 2020, and the other - the development of the Murmansk
transport hub. According to the vice-premier, both questions have a direct
bearing on the Arctic.
Regarding the second question, Ivanov said that "the Murmansk
transport hub was one of the most promising in terms of creating a modern
port with a big turnover."
"The investment project provides for the construction of a new port on
the coast of the Murmansk Bay," he said, adding that Murmansk was one of
Russia's two ports operating year round.
On October 2, a large expedition will leave Murmansk for setting up
the Arctic research station NP-38.
"Two likely sites for it have been defined already north of the coast
of the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea," he said. "It is expected that
this Arctic expedition will produce a large amount of useful scientific
information."

.Missing An-2 plane found in Buryatia, all alive.

ULAN-UDE, October 2 (Itar-Tass) -- Search teams have found the missing
An-2 plane and its passengers in Buryatia.
As it turned out, the An-2 made an emergency landing on Friday during
an attempt to bypass a thundercloud.
"All eleven people on board survived. One person was injured and been
given first medical aid," Emergency Ministry Situations Ministry office in
Buryatia told Itar-Tass. "The passengers and crew are at a camp of
reindeer breeders. They have warm shelter and meals," the Emergency
Situations Ministry said.
The An-2 of the Buryat Airlines went missing en route from Uakit to
Bagdarin 75 kilometers northeast of Bagdarin. When the radio beacon was
activated, the search for the plane and passengers commenced.

.Ukrainian, Polish presidents say gas supply crises era is a bygone.

LONDON, October 2 (Itar-Tass) -- The presidents of Ukraine and Poland,
Viktor Yanukovych and Bronislaw Komorowski, believe that the era of crises
in gas supply is gone never to return, British media cite the Ukrainian
presidential press service as saying. The two presidents spoke on energy
security at the 7th annual Yalta meeting Ukraine and the World: Redefining
Perspectives.
"In the near future there will be no problems with the transit of
energy supplies to Europe either in Ukraine or from Russia. Europe can be
calm," Yanukovich said.
"The stability of energy supplies cannot be achieved without the
formation of even and long-term relations between the countries producing,
transporting and consuming them," Yanukovych replied, when asked about
European energy security. He added that to ensure the stability of Russian
gas supplies Ukraine had for many years needed to establish a positive
climate in relations with Russia. Yanukovych said that such a climate had
been achieved recently.
Komorowski expressed the opinion that to ensure the stability of
energy supplies it would be necessary to diversify their sources. In this
regard, he called for expanding the Odessa-Brody pipeline project. It was
built to pump Caspian oil from the Black Sea coast of Ukraine to the
Baltic coast of Poland, but currently it is used in the reverse mode to
pump Russian oil to Odessa.

-0-str