RF State Duma to ratify agreement on Central Asian anti-drug centre.

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MOSCOW, February 22 (Itar-Tass) -- The Russian State Duma lower
parliament house on Tuesday will ratify the agreement on a Central Asian
anti-drug information and coordination centre signed by Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
The document will be presented by first deputy director of the Russian
deferral anti-drug authority Vladimir Kalanda.
The centre is supposed to be a permanent body "helping to organize and
take coordinated international measures to counteract illegal drug
trafficking." The centre will "collect, store, protect and analyse
information on trans-border drug-related crimes." It will be financed
through contributions of its member countries and funds from sponsor
states (Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the United States,
Turkey, Finland, France, and the Czech Republic) and international
organizations.
Today's Government Hour at the State Duma will be attended by
Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina, who will address
issues "related to innovation activities, which are lacking in this
country so far," as State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov put it earlier. In
his words, the situation in this area must be improved in the context of
"modernization and fulfilment of the tasks set forth in the 2020
strategy," Gryzlov said. Another subject for discussion will be problems
of small businesses. "Despite the fact that small and medium businesses
are developing in our country, their contribution to the country's GDP is
still very poor," he noted.
The lawmakers will also have a first reading of the presidential bill
on air navigation services to Russian Defence and Interior Ministry's
aircraft. It is expected that Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov will
deliver a report on the subject. The bill provides for free services to
such aircraft. The Air Code will be supplemented with a provision saying
that the procedure of covering such expenses is to be established by the
government.
The State Duma will also discuss in the first reading a bill initiated
by the Chechen parliament proposing to cross out from the Russian
Constitution the provision banning a person to take the presidential
office for more than two consecutive terms.

.Over 1,500 vacationers still staying in Kabardino-Balkaria.


MOSCOW, February 22 (Itar-Tass) -- More than 1,500 tourists are
currently staying in Russia's North Caucasian republic of
Kabardino-Balkaria, which has seen a surge in crime in recent days, a
spokesman for the Russian Tourism Agency told Itar-Tass on Monday.
According to the Kabardino-Balkarian tourism authority, there are
about 1,700 vacationers in the republic, of whom 1,500 are skiers, Oleg
Moiseyev said and stressed security measures have been enhanced at public
facilities. "Hotels however operate in a regular regime, ski facilities
are open, ropeways are operational," he said.
In his words, the bulk of vacationers are from neighbouring regions -
the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories.
"The Russian Tourism Agency will announce its official stance on
Tuesday, February 22, when it receives police reports on the situation in
the region," Moiseyev noted.
After a series of terrorist attacks, the regime of counter-terrorist
operation was imposed in the Elbrus and part of the Baksansky districts of
the Kabardino-Balkaria on Sunday from 10:00 a.m. Moscow time.
Masked gunmen opened gunfire t a mini van with vacationers from Moscow
and the Moscow region on February 18, killing three and wounding two. In a
separate incident, attackers blew up a cable support pole near Mount
Elbrus in the same area on Friday, bringing down dozens of cabins. Head of
the district administration of the settlement of Khasanya, also in
Kabardino-Balkaria, Ramazan Friyev, was killed on the same day.
On Saturday, police defused a car bomb placed near a hotel in a
popular ski resort area in Kabardino-Balkaria. Police said the car
belonged to a militant who had been recently killed.

.Electricity failure leaves 70,000 Vladivostok residents without water
supplies.

VLADIVOSTOK, February 22 (Itar-Tass) -- An electricity failure has
left some 70,000 in several districts of the Russian Far Eastern city of
Vladivostok without water supplies, a spokesman for the local water
utility, Primorsky Vodokanal, told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
According to the spokesman, a water pumping station feeding
Vladivostok's most populated districts with water was cut off electricity
supplies after a break of an electricity transmission line overnight to
Tuesday.
Repair works are underway. Water supplies are expected to be resumed
within the day.
Police are probing into the accident.
-0-ras