First phase of BLACKSEAFOR exercise ends in Black Sea.

SEVASTOPOL, April 17 (Itar-Tass) -- The first phase of the
international naval exercise BLACKSEAFOR came to an end in the
southwestern part of the Black Sea on Friday, the Black Sea Fleet's
information support group told Itar-Tass. The international operative
group of ships involved pulled into Bulgaria's port of Varna, where they
will stay till April 19.
"The ships of the international force consisting of the Verny frigate,
of the Bulgarian Navy, the Caesar Kunikov amphibious ship, of the Russian
Navy, the Macular corvette, of the Romanian Navy, the Yildyrym frigate, of
the Turkish Navy, and the Slavutich control ship, of the Ukrainian Navy
held three days of cooperation practice in the southwestern part of the
Black Sea," the information support group said. "The ships practiced
operations to track civil aviation planes, search for and rescue of people
overboard and exchange of supplies on the high sea. Also, the ships
practiced joint maneuvering and vocal and visual communication."
The crew of the Russian amphibious ship the Caesar Kunikov
participated in all components of the exercise and practiced visual
communication with the Ukrainian control ship and the Romanian corvette
and the exchange of supplies with the Bulgarian frigate.
"BLACKSEAFOR crews also had an exercise in controlling the movement of
merchant ships to test officers' knowledge of tactical documentation and
their skills in questioning suspicious vessels," the information support
group said.

.Communications ministry drafts Information Community plan till 2018.

MOSCOW, April 17 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's Communications Minister Igor
Shchyogolev on Friday presented a state program entitled Information
Community and extended over 2011-2018.
"The structure of the program is based on the balance of interest of
all participants," he said at a meeting of the inter-departmental working
group for the promotion of information community in Russia's regions. The
program is aimed at achieving a wide range of specific results, including
a higher quality of life for the people of Russia.
"There are to emerge simple and available services we use on the daily
basis," he said, adding that he had in mind an opportunity to reserve time
and date for a visit to a doctor through the Internet, the possibility of
paying a fine without leaving one's home to go to a bank and many others.
The proposed state program will be expected to promote businesses.
"The exchanges of electronic documents among businesses and with
bodies of state power will be legally valid, Shchyogolev explained, adding
that this would help ease pressures on businesses, eliminate
administrative hurdles and raise labor productivity.
The Information Community program will raise the investment
attractiveness and technological independence of the country and make the
economy more competitive.
"Technical independence of foreign IT solutions must be one of the
principles of building the information community," Shchyogolev said.
Special attention is to be paid to information security and the use of
domestic software.
The topic of digital content enjoyed special attention.
"Information continues to take center stage, hardware should not push
into the background what we are doing all this for," Shchyogolev said. He
explained that first and foremost he had in mind the creation of
Internet-based electronic museums, libraries and encyclopedic resources.
An adviser to the communications minister, Ilya Massukh, said that
direct budget investments into the program until 2018 would total 375
billion rubles. Sources of extra-budgetary financing will be used. The
program has received approval from the government commission for
information and communication technologies, and now it is to undergo
coordination with government ministries. The program will be a
supra-industrial one and addressed to the social sphere in the first
place, Massukh said.

.Ukrainian govt to coordinate reforms with businesses.

KIEV, April 17 (Itar-Tass) -- The Ukrainian government is determined
to go ahead with reforms and to coordinate them with businesses whenever
crucial decisions are to be made.
"The Cabinet of Ministers is taking measures to improve the economic
situation and to create favorable conditions for drawing investments,"
Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Tigipko said at a meeting of the European
business association on Friday.
In his opinion, in the near future it will be possible to restructure
and reschedule the government's VAT reimbursement debt to exporters by
issuing securities, the Cabinet's press-service said.
Tigipko discussed with representatives of domestic and foreign
business circles represented in Ukraine the current problems and future
steps to be taken by the authorities to implement economic reforms. The
government plans to open up wide opportunities for drawing private
investments into the economy by restoring what he described as
"transparent privatization." He also promised that although the 2010 draft
budget envisaged a revenue of 1.25 billion dollars from privatization, the
government would manage to raise twice as much.
Tigipko said that the government and producers were discussing the
possibility of raising excise duties on tobacco and alcohol.
"We should give thought to how to take care of the domestic producers
and to protect the Ukrainian market from smuggling," Tigipko said.

-0-str


Delete & Prev | Delete & Next