Sergei Mironov to enter upon his duties in State Duma Tue.

.ITAR-TASS overnight news cycle for Tue, Jun 14 - 2.


MOSCOW, June 14 (Itar-Tass) - Sergei Mironov, ex -Speaker of the
Federation Council upper house of the Russian parliament and the leader of
the Just Russia party (JRP), will officially assume the powers of a Member
of the State Duma lower house of parliament on Tuesday.
The House faction of the JRP intends ceremonially to welcome Mironov
aboard at a special meeting which will commence at 13:00.

.Concert, firework display to greet participants in SCO summit.

ASTANA, June 14 (Itar-Tass) - The leaders of the member-countries of
the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) arrive here on Tuesday. On
June 15, they will meet in the Palace of Independence at a session of the
SCO Council of the Heads of State. The leaders of SCO member-countries,
Observer and Dialogue Partner countries will be arriving in the capital's
airport from 11:00 to 17:00, local time, an official at Kazakhstan's
Foreign Ministry has told Itar-Tass.
Chinese President Hu Jintao has been staying in Astana since June 12.
Upon timing his seventh official visit to Kazakhstan to coincide wit the
SCO jubilee summit, Hu held talks with President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Within the scope of the talks the two leaders signed a Joint Declaration
on the development of all-round strategic partnership, as well as a number
of bilateral agreements on specific areas of cooperation, including the
nuclear power industry and the oil and gas sector.
The delegations of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran,
Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan will arrive in Astana on Tuesday.
The Foreign Ministry official told Itar-Tass that, ahead of the
principal day of the summit proceedings, a concert is to be given to the
guests on the occasion of the SCO's 10th jubilee. A spectacular firework
display is being prepared in the Left-Bank administrative and business
district of the Kazakhstani capital.
On the sidelines of Tuesday festive events, talks with the Kazakhstani
President are to be held by Dmitry Medvedev who arrives in Astana from
Uzbekistan at the close of his working visit there. The Russian president
is also expected to meet with Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
SCO Secretary-General Muratbek Imanaliyev said Monday,
"In this jubilee year, a broader spectrum of matters is suggested for
discussion at the SCO summit than previously".
The principal items on the summit agenda are to sum up the results of
SCO activities over the past decade, determine orientations for further
development, and exchange views on international and regional problems.
"The presidents will speak on matters connected with trade, economic,
scientific, and technical cooperation between countries. I am deeply
convinced that highly interesting and useful ideas and recommendations
will be expressed on the part of our (SCO countries') leaders. They will
discuss security issues, with the context and range of discussion in this
respect being rather extensive. I'd say that a wider set of problems than
before will be touched upon," Imanaliyev said.
A number of documents have been already prepared for the Heads of
State of SCO countries to sign. The main of them will be an Astana
Declaration on the SCO's 10th jubilee. The Declaration is expected to
seal the point that the SCO has become an effective mechanism for the
elaboration of important decisions and recommendations that make an
increasingly tangible contribution to regional security, to the buiding of
confidence, mutual understanding and economic cooperation and that SCO
activities are in demand on the part of both the SCO member-countriers and
other members of the world community.
At the summit, Kazakhstan is to turn SCO presidency over to China for
the period of 2011-2012 until next summit. Within the period of its
presidency, Kazakhstan has carried out more than 100 activities at various
levels.

.Optic fiber comm line to link Sakhalin isle and mainland.

VLADIVOSTOK, June 14 (Itar-Tass) - The laying of a new optical fiber
communication trunkline has been started on the Sakhalin Island.
The 700-km line will link the island region and the mainland. Four
hundred and sixty kilometres of the line will run across Khabarovsk
Territory, eight kilometres via the seabed of the Nevelskoy Strait from
Cape Lazarev to Cape Pogibi in sakhalin's north-west and 230-240 km across
the island proper, an official in the press servive of the Rostelecom-Far
East Company told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.
Nineteen kilometres of the optic fiber cable have been already laid
from Cape Pogibi into the island's hinterland in the direction of Nysh
Village.
The building work is being done in very complex conditions of marshy
ground. Builders have encountered an unexpected problem: the buiding
operations have attracted bears that regularly roam the construction sites.
The Company official pointedout, "The putting into operation of the
optic fiber communication trunkline linking Sakhalin and the mainland will
enable the Rostelecom to have its own resources to provide the population
and enterprises of the Sakhalin Region with qualitative communication up
to a new up-to-date digital level".