All oil spill cleanup operations at ESPO Skovorodino section over

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IRKUTSK, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - All the oil spill cleanup
operations on a section of the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil
pipeline near Skovorodino in the Amur region have been completed. The
commission inspection act was signed by head of the Skovorodino district
Vasily Glyakov, Itar-Tass was told on Wednesday at the directorate of the
Vostoknefteprovod company - a subsidiary of Transneft.
According to specified data of the local unit of the RF Emergency
Situations Ministry's main department for the Amur region, the volume of
unsanctioned oil spill that occurred on February 3 amounted to 6 to 8
cubic metres. Water sample taking continues in the water conservation zone
of the Bolshoi Never River. The first samples taken to the Centre of
Hygiene and Epidemiology of Skovorodino have shown that the maximal
allowed concentration of hazardous substances has not been exceeded.
The leadership of Vostoknefteprovod is ascertaining all the
circumstances of the incident and will take measures to prevent such
incidents in the future.
The regional crisis management centre reported earlier that a
temporary pipeline was damaged during scheduled maintenance in the area of
the Never settlement, which caused the petroleum products' spill.
Emergency field engineer units of the oil pipeline system, personnel
of search and rescue teams, the Amur centre of civil defence and fire
safety, an operational group of the crisis management centre were working
at the incident site. The efforts to liquidate the aftermath of the
pipeline rupture, containment of the oil spill and degassing involved 30
specialists of the Vostoknefteprovod company and powerful machinery.
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.Building of bridge to Russky Island 2-3 months ahead of schedule.

VLADIVOSTOK, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - The construction of a bridge to
the Russky Island in Vladivostok is going 2-3 months ahead of schedule.
Now the builders are completing concreting of the foundations for the
giant pylons that will support the bridge over the water surface. A total
of 24 bridge support structures have reached the design elevation and the
construction of several others is at the final stage.
A total of about 158,000 cubic metres of high quality cast reinforced
concrete have been laid in the construction of the bridge to the Russky
Island, it was announced at a meeting in Vladivostok on Wednesday chaired
by governor of the Primorsky Territory Sergei Darkin.
The bridge to the Russky Island where the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) forum's summit will be held in 2012, will stretch from
the Nazimov Peninsula over the Bosfor Vostochny Strait water area to
Novosilsky Cape on the Russky Island. The length of the bridge crossing
will be 3.1 kilometres. The world's longest cable bridge span - 1,104
metres - will stretch between two pylon supports with a height of 320
metres that will also become the highest structures of this type in the
world.
Over 40 large facilities are to be built for the 2012 APEC summit in
Vladivostok, including roads, bridges, hotels, water and power supply
facilities.
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.RF, India developing legal base for India manned space prog.

MOSCOW, February 11 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and India are working on the
regulatory framework for their joint work on the implementation of India's
manned space programme, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency
(Roskosmos) Anatoly Perminov said on Radio Voice of Russia.
Answering a question if an agreement on the flight of Indian
cosmonauts on the Russian Soyuz spaceship has been reached and when this
flight could take place the Roskomsos head said that "we are currently
conducting negotiations on this issue." "Because India is building its
manned space programme in general, is creating its manned spaceship and
carrier rocket," Perminov noted. "And in some issues they have asked us to
work jointly with them," he added.
"However, there are questions that we cannot decide ourselves,"
Perminov admitted. "We need to have our government's permission for our
certain actions. Therefore we are now developing the regulatory framework
of this project," he said.
In the view of the Roskosmos head, the implementation of India's
manned space programme is the matter not of the near future. "Very much is
yet to be done regarding the ground component in order to proceed to
manned space flights from the Indian territory," he noted.
The major objective of Indian manned mission program is to develop the
fully autonomous three-tonne OV spaceship to carry a 2-member crew to
orbit and safe return to the Earth after a mission duration of few orbits
to two days. The extendable version of the spaceship will allow flights up
to seven days, rendezvous and docking capability with space stations or
orbital platform.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to use for OV
spaceship the GSLV-Mk II launcher (Mark two is Geosynchronous Satellite
Launch Vehicle-II launcher with an indigenous cryogenic engine). About 16
minutes after lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC),
Sriharikota, the rocket will inject the OV into an orbit, 300 km-400 km
from the Earth. The capsule would return for a splashdown in the Bay of
Bengal.
ISRO will set up an astronaut training centre in Bangalore by 2012, to
prepare personnel both for first orbital flights onboard OV and for
planned in future manned Moon missions which will land Indians on the
Earth's natural satellite after 2020.
India would receive assistance in crew selection and training from
Russia under an agreement signed between the two countries in March 2008.
One option being studied would be flight of an Indian astronaut aboard a
Soyuz capsule by 2012 in preparation for the Indian mission.
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