Russian flag hoisted in Vancouver Olympic village.

VANCOUVER, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian flag was hoisted in
the Vancouver Olympic village where the Winter Olympic Games will start on
February 12.
Taking part in the Russian tricolour hoisting ceremony were RF Vice
Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, President of the Russian Olympic
Committee Leonid Tyagachev, officials of the Russian delegation,
sportsmen, coaches and "star fans."
Before the flag was hoisted head of the Russian delegation Vladimir
Vasin handed to one of the mayors of the Olympic village a vase with
symbols of the Russian Olympic Committee.
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or
the 21st Winter Olympics, will be a major international multi-sport event
held on February 12-28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with
some events held in the resort town of Whistler, British Columbia and in
the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games
are being organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). The
2010 Winter Olympics will be the third Olympics hosted by Canada, and the
first by the province of British Columbia. Previously, Canada was home to
the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec and the 1988 Winter Olympics
in Calgary, Alberta.
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.Lavrov departs for Havana - 1st leg of Central America tour.

MOSCOW, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov on Thursday departed for Havana - the first leg of his Central
American tour during which he will also visit Nicaragua, Guatemala and
Mexico.
The RF foreign minister on February 11-13 will hold talks with the
Cuban leadership and take part in the XIX Havana International Book Fair,
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.
"Russia regards Cuba as a key partner in the Latin American region,"
the diplomat specified. "The bilateral political dialogue, including at
the summit and high levels, is of a regular and confidential nature." "The
issue of the deepening and diversification of the Russian-Cuban
trade-economic and financial-investment relations, issues of advancement
of major bilateral cooperation projects in the sphere of the electric
power industry, hydrocarbons, transport infrastructure, biopharmaceuticals
and high technologies will be high on the forthcoming talks' agenda,"
Nesterenko noted.
"The bilateral trade, which makes about 260 million dollars,
objectively does not correspond to the existing potential of our
countries. We hope that the improvement of the situation will contribute
to a success of the 9th session of the intergovernmental commission on
trade-economic cooperation in Havana in April 2010," he pointed out.
The cooperation in the culture-humanitarian and tourism spheres is
also in the focus of bilateral relations. In 2010 Russia is planning to
deliver gratis 100,000 tonnes of wheat to Cuba. "About 40,000 Russian
tourists visit the island every year, and their number is constantly on
the rise. The practice was resumed to send Cuban citizens for state-funded
training courses in Russian higher educational institutions," Nesterenko
added.
Upon the results of the negotiations it is planned to sign joint
statements on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of reinstating
diplomatic relations between our countries, on the inadmissible revision
of the results of the Second World War, as well as the schedule of
political consultations between the Foreign Ministries of Russia and Cuba
for 2010-2011.
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.Moldova, Dniester experts to discuss railway service resumption.

CHISINAU, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - Experts of Moldova and the
Dniester region (Transnistria) will meet here on Thursday in order to
discuss the possibility of the resumption of railway service between the
two banks of the Dniester River that had been interrupted in 2006.
Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Osipov who is responsible for
the Dniester settlement on Wednesday expressed confidence that the
movement of Moldovan trains in the Dniester region territory will soon be
resumed in full volume.
It is planned that in the period from February 11 to 25 the meetings
of all joint groups will be held. They will be settling problems in the
bilateral relations at the interdepartmental level. Osipov expressed the
hope that the resumption of their activity will promote the working out of
specific decisions and confidence building between Chisinau and Tiraspol.
The talks on the Dniester region settlement in the format "five plus
two" (Moldova, The Dniester region, mediators - Russia, Ukraine, OSCE,
observers from the United States and the European Union) were interrupted
in February 2006. The dialogue between Chisinau and Tiraspol was resumed
in two years with the help of Russia - in April 2008 the first meeting
after a seven-year interval was held between Moldovan former President
Vladimir Voronin and Transnistria head Igor Smirnov.
Last week, director of the Dniester Railways state enterprise Sergei
Martsinko told reporters that the authorities of Moldova's secessionist
Dniester region that has been seeking independence since the early 1990's
have proposed to the country's central government to restore full-scale
railway traffic via the territory of the unrecognised Dniester Republic.
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