Russia to mark day of mourning over demise of Polish president.

MOSCOW, April 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia will mark the day of mourning
Monday over the demise of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in the air crash
outside Smolensk.
All national flags are flying at half-mast all over Russia, but where
the design of the national flags does not let them flying at half-mast,
they are decorated with black mourning ribbons. Cultural organizations and
television and radio broadcasting companies are recommended to cancel all
entertainment events and programs.
The airliner Tu-154 carrying the Polish delegation headed by the
Polish president, who intended to participate in the mourning events at
the Katyn Memorial, crashed at about 10.50 Moscow time on April 10 near
the town of Pechersk in the Smolensk Region. All 96 people aboard the
airliner died in the air crash.

.Russian women propose to hold int'l forum on women against terror.

VORONEZH, April 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian women, who participated in
the Voronezh conference devoted to the situation and public and political
prospects of the Russian women's movement on Sunday, proposed to hold an
international forum entitled Women Against Terror.
"The latest raids of the terrorists made it possible to witness, how
strong and united we are," co-chairwoman of the council of consolidation
of the Russian women's movement Vera Plotnikova noted. The state
authorities and the society "should pool their efforts to eradicate the
evil of terrorism and to do the coordinated active work to prevent the
terrorist acts," she underlined.

.Kazakhstan, US sign several agreements during Nazarbayev's visit.

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Itar-Tass) -- Kazakhstan and the United States
signed several document during Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's
visit in Washington. The visiting Kazakh president met with his U.S.
counterpart Barack Obama, who discussed broader bilateral cooperation in
order to build up the international nuclear non-proliferation regime,
stability in Central Asia, promote economic prosperity and universal
values. Nazarbayev will attend the Washington Nuclear Security Summit
along with numerous leaders of other countries on Monday and Tuesday.
The countries signed three agreements on Sunday. First, the sides
concluded an agreement on cooperation in science and technologies.
Secondly, they signed a memorandum on mutual understanding between a
General Electric subsidiary, which is specialized in the transport
industry, and the Kazakh Temir Zholy national railway company. The
document envisages the cooperation in designing a new type of locomotive.
Finally, the countries concluded an agreement on the training of the
Astana Air pilots at a specific educational institution in Florida.
Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Kairat Umarov and U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake signed
the agreement on cooperation in science and technologies.
Speaking at a solemn ceremony after the signing of the agreement the
U.S. diplomat noted that the foresaid agreement was concluded in line with
growing cooperation between Washington and Astana. According to him, the
U.S. praises highly Kazakhstan's assistance in the stabilization of the
current situation in Afghanistan, and the fact that the republic presiding
in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2010
gives close attention to all three dimensions in the activity of this
organization - military-political, economic and humanitarian ones.
For his part, Umarov described the agreement as "the evidence of
growing and strengthening" strategic partnership between Kazakhstan and
the U.S. The countries are developing bilateral cooperation efficiently in
all spheres, the Kazakh deputy foreign minister said.
Kazakhstan became the first former Soviet Central Asian republic, with
which the U.S. signed the corresponding agreement, the U.S. State
Department reported.

.Relatives of demised German tourists arrive in Kamchatka.

PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, April 12 (Itar-Tass) -- The relatives of
German tourists, who died under the avalanche on April 10, arrived in
Kamchatka on Monday.
"The relatives were accommodated at the hotel, they will take part in
the identification procedure on Monday," a source in the government of the
Kamchatka Region told Itar-Tass. "On Tuesday, April 13, after all
investigation measures the bodies of the avalanche victims will be
airlifted to the homeland," regional minister of special programs Sergei
Khabarov said. On Thursday a charter airliner sent from Germany will
arrive on the peninsula to evacuate an injured German tourist. "Currently
he is in stable condition, but he sustained a severe injury and will be
not able to go himself in the near future," Khabarov said.
On April 10, a massive avalanche with the volume of about two million
cubic meters covered the tourists and a helicopter, which brought them to
the snowboarding site, 67 kilometers away from the city of Elizovo. Five
German citizens, two helicopter crewmen - Sergei Tildishev and Viktor
Maslov, snowboarders Pavel Malyuga, Alexander Astrotin (the grandson of
the crew commander) and Andrei Naumenko with the dual citizenship died in
the avalanche. Two people were severely injured, six tourists were not
wounded.
The transport prosecutor's office in the Kamchatka Region, which
investigated the accident, did not find any violations of the flight
safety rules by the helicopter crew. The inquiry materials over the safety
rules envisaged in the services of a tourist company, which organized a
tour, are passed to the Elizovo investigation department of the Prosecutor
General's Office Investigation Committee (SKP) in the Kamchatka Region.
The tourist group was not registered in the Kamchatka
search-and-rescue service. Two German citizens acted as guides in charge
of life safety.
Since April 1 German tourists went snowboarding from the snowed
volcanoes brought by the helicopter there. On April 11, they were going to
leave the peninsula, the Kamchatka government source said.
-0-baz


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