RF communist leader believes Obama ready for better ties with Cuba.

MOSCOW, July 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Communist Party leader Gennady
Zyuganov believes that U.S. President Barack Obama was ready to develop
relations with Cuba.
"I raised the issue of Cuba's blockade," he told Itar-Tass after the
U.S. president's meeting with Russian opposition parties on Tuesday. Obama
"made clear that he was ready for stepping up relations" with that country.
In general, the communist leader said he had a good impression form
the meeting with Obama, "because everybody was tired of confrontation
imposed by the Bush administration."
"Obama did not evade most complicated questions, he answered in
detail, spoke much and expanded all themes," Zyuganov said.
The meeting lasted for more than 60 minutes.
At the U.S. initiative nine representatives of the opposition parties
were invited.
"Opposition members did not go to complain, but to resolve problems of
our common security," he said.


.Syria's president visits Baku to boost bilateral relations.

BAKU, July 8 (Itar-Tass) - Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on
Wednesday arrives on his first visit to Azerbaijan to discuss stronger
bilateral relations between the countries.
According to the diplomatic sources in Baku, soon after the arrival
the Syrian leader would meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilkham
Aliyev in the one-to-one format and after this will have an expanded
meeting with participation of governmental delegations.
The two leaders are expected to focus on deeper trade and economic
cooperation and plan to sign several economic agreements.
Aliyev and al-Assad will also touch upon regional and international
problems, including the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement and the
situation in the Middle East.
The Syrian president is expected to meet with Prime Minister Artur
Rasizade and parliamentary speaker Oktai Asadov and to take part in the
Azerbaijani-Syrian business forum.
On the eve of al-Assad's visit Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Muallem was in Baku to promote trade relations.


.Ways out of global crisis - cross-cutting theme of G8 summit - aide.

MOSCOW, July 8 (Itar-Tass) - The ways out of the global financial
crisis will be a cross-cutting theme of the G8 summit in Italy's L'Aquila,
said the Russian president's aide and summit sherpa, Arkady Dvorkovich.
"Among the priorities of the Russian delegation are the formation of
new rules of the game on the financial markets, in the energy, security,
investment and trade sectors as well as in the fight against negative
effects of the climate change," he said.
"In fact, we form a new architecture of global management," Dvorkovich
said adding that the word 'management' reflects the ongoing processes not
clearly enough. "Nobody casts doubt on countries' sovereignty. We speak
about coordination, but not about the creation of supranational structures
to manage global processes."
The aide underlined that in their first day's statement G8 leaders
will announce their readiness to curtail anti-crisis programs soon after
the global economy registers a stable upward trend.
"The statement announces the readiness to maintain anti-crisis
programs that were initiated several months ago as well as to start
implementing a strategy to curb anti-crisis programs, when the process of
recovery becomes evident and when we begin to observe not separate
positive signals, but a stable upturn of the global economy," Dvorkovich
said.
He noted that the statement will stress that it is still early to stop
anti-crisis programs, but it is necessary already today to think about
macroeconomic stability in the long-term.
"It is necessary to develop a strategy of curtailing anti-crisis
programs not to disrupt medium-term macroeconomic stability. This is an
important step for growing debts and budget deficits not to create high
inflation and not to impose excessive burden on future generations," the
aide said.
Moreover, G8 leaders plan to focus on how their obligations to provide
anti-crisis assistance to poor countries are being implemented.
"No all countries fulfil the obligations they had taken. Discussions
will focus not only on the size of financial aid, but also on its result,"
he said. The main thing is "to create conditions for the poorest
countries' economies to develop."

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