.Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan pool efforts to prevent poliomyelitis.

MOSCOW, May 12 (Itar-Tass) - Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan strengthen
efforts to prevent the emergence and spread of poliomyelitis.
Kazakhstan's chief sanitary doctor said in a statement that "these
measures are taken following the world's aggravated situation in
poliomyelitis."
Kazakhstan's Health Ministry "instructed to toughen sanitary control
over passengers arriving from polio-affected countries and vaccinate
children under 15 years of age from Tajikistan who had not received
vaccination."
Uzbek chief sanitary doctor and Deputy Health Minister Bakhtiyer
Niyazmatov told reporters the republic has registered no cases of
poliomyelitis since 1996.
"However, recently some countries of the Central Asian Region reported
new cases of the disease. Therefore the Health Ministry signed an
agreement on cooperation with the World Health Organization and UNICEF to
hold the national days of immunization against poliomyelitis," he said.
"This campaign will embrace all children from birth to age five -
around 3 million children," Niyazmatov said. "The campaign will take place
in two rounds - from May 17 to May 23 and from June 7 to June 13."
In April Tajikistan registered an outbreak of poliomyelitis. After
this the WHO called on the Central Asian states to toughen sanitary
control and hold immunization. Around 240 children were hospitalized in
Tajikistan with suspected poliomyelitis, of them thirteen died.



.Serbia's Tadic begins two-day visit to Azerbaijan.

BELGRADE, May 12 (Itar-Tass) - Serbia's President Boris Tadic on
Wednesday begins his visit to Azerbaijan for the first time in many years,
the president's press service said.
In Baku Tadic will meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilkham
Aliyev, Prime Minister Artur Rasi-zade and parliamentary speaker Ogtai
Osadov.
The two sides plan to consider "all aspects of bilateral cooperation,"
the press service said.
Belgrade considers Azerbaijan's refusal to recognize Kosovo's
self-proclaimed independence as good groundwork for further rapprochement.
Azerbaijan and Serbia began their active political dialogue last June,
when Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic visited Baku.
The bilateral consultations were continued on May 9 in Moscow, where
the two countries' leaders took part in the events to mark the 65th
anniversary of the victory in WWII.
An economic component of Serbian-Azerbaijani cooperation still lags
behind political one. Since 2005 Serbia's export to Azerbaijan, mainly
medicines, floor coating and some equipment, reported an onward trend, but
the absolute volume of exports still remains modest.
Local economists say amid the global financial crisis Azerbaijan's
exports to Serbia, mainly liquefied butane and aluminium, shrank.
In 2009 the two countries' trade comprised 5.15 million dollars and
Azerbaijan ranked 55th among Serbia's foreign economic partners.



.US-RF civilian n-cooperation deal fills relations with content - MP.

MOSCOW, May 12 (Itar-Tass) - The US administration's return to
ratification of an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation fills the
Russia-U.S. reset with real content, the chairman of the Russian
Federation Council's international affairs committee, Mikhail Margelov,
told Itar-Tass by phone.
"The President Obama administration returned to ratification of the
bilateral 123 agreement. In connection with this we can speak about
filling the reset in the two countries' relations with real content and
can believe that it will not be restricted only by the signing of the
treaty on strategic arms reduction," he said.
"Gusts of passion on Georgia that seized the former U.S.
administration naturally exhausted themselves and sober calculations took
the 123 agreement onto political and economic track," Margelov said.
At the same time he noted that the agreement "is equally advantageous
for Russia and the United States, as it expands our cooperation in the
nuclear sector."
Margelov recalled that the two countries' presidents signed the
document back in 2008 and submitted it to parliaments for ratification.
However, the United States expressed "inadequately nervous" attitude to
Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia's independence and
revoked the agreement from the Congress.
"At present, our relations are changing for the better, which is in
particular confirmed by Obama's decision," he said.
Margelov stressed that the main thing is that the Congress should not
veto the document within three months. "If this does not happen, the
agreement will enter into force automatically."
"This would create the groundwork for drafting a legal base for trade
in nuclear materials and for the development of innovative nuclear
technologies," the parliamentarian said adding that "the agreement will
give a fresh impetus to cooperation in prevention of uncontrolled
proliferation of nuclear technologies."

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