Protesting US engineer crashes plane into tax office.

NEW YORK, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- A software engineer angered by
the Internal Revenue Service crashed his small plane into an office
building housing nearly 200 federal tax employees on Thursday, setting off
fire and panic, the Associated Press reported .

It identified the pilot as Joseph Stack, whose home was set on fire
just before the crash and who placed a message on the Web before
committing suicide.
The message speaks of problems with the tax-collecting agency and says
violence "is the only answer", according to AP. "Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS
man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep
well," the message said.
After the plane crashed into the Austin building, flames shot up,
windows exploded and workers ran to safety. At least one person was
unaccounted for and two people were hospitalized.

.Moscow traffic jams bar Russian "reset" for US media gurus.

MOSCOW, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- Moscow traffic jams have reportedly
denied a U.S. delegation of technology and social media leaders, who
arrived as part of White House efforts to "reset" relations with Russia,
to meet their Russian business and government counterparts on Thursday.
"We regret the meeting did not take place," head of the delegation and
member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff Jared Cohen told
Tass.
Member of the National Security Council Howard Solomon said the group
hopes the meeting with representatives of the Communications ministry, as
well as IT-companies Yandex, Kasperski Laboratory, ABBYY and others will
take place anyway.
The group that includes White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh
Chopra, and chief executives of the US largest IT and social-media
companies, including eBay, Twitter, and CISCO Systems, plans to meet
Russian government and business leaders, as well as students and members
of non-government groups.
The meeting did not take place because of the proposed venue, which
the U.S. group said will make it impossible for them to timely arrive to
the next scheduled meeting because of traffic jams in the Russian capital.
They proposed to meet in the U.S. embassy, but the Russian side disagreed.
The visit is a part of a comprehensive dialogue launched by the
bilateral presidential commission that was created by Presidents Barack
Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in July 2009.
Besides Moscow, the group is to visit Novosibirsk.

.China condemns Obama meeting Dalai Lama.

BEIJING, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- China condemned U.S. President
Barack Obama meeting with Dalai Lama, saying the United States should work
to improve bilateral relations.
"China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to
this (meeting)," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in
comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency on Friday.
The meeting with the exiled Tibetan leader "violated the U.S.
government's repeated acceptance that Tibet is a part of China and it does
not support Tibetan independence," Ma said.
The United States should "immediately take effective steps to
eradicate the malign effects" of the meeting, Ma said and called to "use
concrete actions to promote the healthy and stable development of
Sino-U.S. relations."
In Washington White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama expressed
"strong support" to Dalai Lama for "the preservation of Tibet's unique
religious, cultural and linguistic identity and the protection of human
rights for Tibetans".
The Dalai Lama said he was "very happy" with the meeting and that
Obama was "very much supportive."

.Biden says new START to promote strategic stability.

WASHINGTON, February 19 (Itar-Tass) -- U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden
said the new strategic arms reduction treaty between the United States and
Russia will promote strategic stability and prevent nuclear proliferation.
"U.S. and Russian negotiators are completing an agreement that will
reduce strategic weapons to their lowest levels in decades," Biden said on
Thursday in the National Defense University.
"Its verification measures will provide confidence its terms are being
met. These reductions will be conducted transparently and predictably.
The new START treaty will promote strategic stability and bolster global
efforts to prevent proliferation by showing that the world's leading
nuclear powers are committed to reducing their arsenals," he stressed.
"It will build momentum for collaboration with Russia on strengthening
the global consensus that nations who violate their NPT obligations should
be held to account," Biden said.
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