Nord Stream gas pipeline tunnel built beneath Neva.

KIROVSK, Leningrad Region, July 22 (Itar-Tass) - A high-powered
tunneling machinery system has surfaced on the left bank of the Neva River
upon driving a tunnel beneath the riverbed.


This brought to completion a
large-scale operation to make a tunnel for a submerged crossing of the
Nord Stream gas pipeline at the Gruzovets-Vyborg section.
A ceremony marking the event willbe held at the construction site in
Kirovsk District of Leningrad Region, where the receiving foundation pit
is located. The ceremony will be attended by the executives of the
subfivisions of the MetroStroj public joint-stock company (St Petersburg),
by customers from the Gazprom Invest Zapad (west) Company ,
represnetatives of allied enterprises, and equipment suppliers.
MetroStroj General Director Vadim Alexandrov has told Itar-Tass that
complex work, unusual enough, has been done within two months without
suspending navigation along the Neva. The tunnelling has been completed
several days earlier than planned, which has already become a good
tradition with the metrobuilders.
The diameter of the tunnel is two metres, and maximum depth is 25
metres. The operation was conducted with the use of advanced technology
for the construction of small-diameter tunnels. The techology had been
succesfully used in the construction of oil pipelines, sewage headers, and
other facilities in the country's North-West.
Lying ahead is the work to dismantle the tunnel shield for its
subsequent use at yet another submerged crossing of the Nord Stream -- a
tunnel beneath the Saimensky (Saimaa) Canal in the Vyboprg District of
Leningrad Region.
The gas pipeline is to be put into operation in 2011. At the first
stage, it is planned to build one line with a carrying capacity of 27,500
million cubic metres of gas a year. The project envisages the construction
of a second line by 2012 to raise the carrying capapcity of the Nord
Stream up to 55,000 million cu.m. of gas a year.
The Nord Stream,1,200 km long, will run from Vyborg (Russia) to
Greifswald (Germany).

.USS presence in Black Sea in '08 was unfriendly act-view.

KHABAROVSK, July 22 (Itar-Tass) - The presence of American ships in
the Black Sea during the conflict in the Caucasus was a US unfriendly act
with regard to Russia, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the
General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, said here on
Wednesday.
"We take a negative view of that. We said the presence of American
ships in the Black Sea made us uneasy very much. This was far from being a
US friendly act as regards Russia," General Makarov told Russian and
Chinese journalists after a ceremony of the laying of wreaths in the Glory
Square at the memorial to the Far Eastern servicemen who had perished
during the years of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
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