Five Muslim worshippers wounded in a village in Dagestan.

MAKHACHKALA, March 27 (Itar-Tass) - Five Muslim worshippers, including
the Imam of a local mosque, were wounded on Friday as unidentified gunmen
opened fire in the village of Aksay in Dagestan.

A source at Dagestan's Interior Ministry told Itar-Tass that the
incident had occurred after an evening prayer when the worshippers were
leaving the mosque.
According to the source, the attackers, presumably members of illegal
armed groups, were riding in a car. They pulled up near the mosque, fired
several rounds from a machinegun and then escaped.
The injured were taken to hospital. Doctors describe their condition
as grave.
An operation to detain the criminals has been announced in Dagestan.

.Day of Europe opens in Kazan on Saturday.

KAZAN, the Republic of Tatarstan, March 27 (Itar-Tass) - A Day of
Europe festival organized by the EU commission's office in Russia and the
embassies and cultural centers of the European Union countries will open
in Kazan on Saturday.
The first such festival was held in Kazan last year.
Fernando Valenzuela, the head of the EU commissioner's office in
Russia, told Itar-Tass that the second Day of Europe would focus on
education. He said that in conditions of globalization more and more
processes were becoming international and that education is no exception.
The European Union and Russia are trying to harmonize the system of
higher education within the framework of the Bologna process. It's not
accidental that Kazan, one of the biggest University hubs, has been chosen
as the venue this year, Valenzuela went on to say.
"Holding the Day of Europe is particularly important now that the city
is getting ready to host the 27th World Summer Student Games in 2013,"
Farid Muhametshin, the chairman of Tatarstan's State Council (parliament),
said.
The program includes public debates on urgent themes in politics,
culture and literature as well as a presentation of educational programs,
a film festival, European languages lessons and photo exhibitions.
Gourmets will have a chance to enjoy a show of European cuisine to be
accompanied by Tatar music.
The Day of Europe is a holiday marking the birth of the European
Union. Shortly after WWII European leaders arrived at a conclusion that
cooperation was the best guarantor of peace. The unification process
started on May 9, 1950.
In 1957, the European Economic Community, which is now uniting 27
states, was born.

.German investors get green light in Nizhniy Novgorod.

NIZHNIY NOVGOROD, March 27 (Itar-Tass) - Russia's Nizhny Novgorod
region demonstrated its socio-economic development and investment
potential to representatives of German business circles on Friday. The
presentation took place at the German embassy in Moscow.
Valery Shantsev, the governor of the Nizhniy Novgorod region, gave the
Germans the green light and promised support in any kind of activity.
The governor said that Germans were the first foreign businessmen and
investors who arrived in the Nizhniy Novgorod region in the 1990s. Since
then business contacts between Germany and the region have only become
stronger.
Shantsev emphasized that the region was developing rapidly and will
soon establish most favored status for investors. The recently passed law
on public-private partnership (PPP) and the 'single window regime' open up
new opportunities to potential investors to implement large-scale projects
in the region's territory.
Vadim Ivanov, the director of the regional department of international
foreign economic and inter-regional ties, told Itar-Tass that the heads
of German companies, the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers,
the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, representatives of the federal
lands of Bavaria and Saxony noted that the global economic crisis had been
unfavorable for bilateral business contacts. In 2009, the dynamics of
trade and economic cooperation went down while trade shrank.
However, the German partners are planning to compensate for the 2009
losses. Several German companies and firms have said they are ready to
come to Nizhny Novgorod to discuss the creation of enterprises that will
produce medicines and medical equipment and the implementation of major
infrastructure projects.
"The first visits are expected this April, and we hope that new names
will appear on the investment map of the Nizhniy Novgorod region," Vadim
Ivanov went on to say.
Germany is one of the key trading partners in the region. Its share in
foreign trade accounts for 12 percent. According to the Volga Customs
Department, trade exchanges between regional enterprises and Germany
reached 629.9 million dollars in 2009. The Nizhniy Novgorod region
received 79.7 million dollars worth of German investments in 2008. The
bulk of those investments went to processing industries.

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